SLEEP SECRETS

How scientists discovered the secrets of our sleep

This week: snoring SNORING is an ancient problem — but it was not always regarded as a health issue. In 1837, Charles Dickens wrote of obese Joe in The Pickwick Papers, who snored all night yet spent days half-asleep.

In 1956, a businessman was hospitalised with the same problem, which The American Journal of Medicine called ‘Pickwickian syndrome’. In 1965 French and German researchers monitored snorers and coined the term ‘sleep apnoea’, where sleeping people stop breathing for short periods.

Subsequent studies showed that sleep apnoea sends blood pressure soaring, puts strain on the heart and causes drowsiness. For the next 15 years, the only cure was a tracheostomy — cutting a hole in the throat through which the patient can breathe — but this prevents normal speech. Then, in 1980, Australian physician Colin Sullivan discovered putting air pressure through the nose — called CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) — stops apnoea. He published his trial on five patients in The Lancet the following year. It is now the most common treatment for the condition.