Snoring triggers dementia, according to new research. It cuts off blood and oxygen to the brain-destroying neurons, say scientists. Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) affects about 1.5 million Britons - most of whom are undiagnosed.
The walls of the throat relax and narrow - interrupting normal breathing several times a night. Lead author Dr Ivana Rosenzweig, who heads the Sleep and Brain Plasticity Centre at King's College London, said: "We show poorer executive functioning and visuospatial memory and deficits in vigilance, sustained attention and psychomotor and impulse control in men with OSA.
"Most of these deficits had previously been ascribed to co-morbidities. We also demonstrated for the first time that OSA can cause significant deficits in social cognition."
