The Australian study identified 213 children with rhinitis who snored to some extent. According to their parents or caregivers, 60 percent of the children snored at least once a week, including more than one-quarter of the children (26 percent) who snored more than three nights a week.
"Our findings were consistent with the view that snoring forms part of the spectrum of allergic diseases in childhood," Dr. Nat Marshall of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, said in a press release. "Snoring can be an early manifestation of more serious sleep-disordered breathing, so it's not necessarily a harmless condition. In adults habitual snoring is seen as being caused by anatomical problems in the airway or obesity. But in children it seems that snoring is much more closely related to allergy and inflammation." Marshall noted that previous studies have found strong associations between snoring and allergic or inflammatory diseases.
He added: "Our data hopefully contribute to a clinician's ability to effectively spot snoring in pre-school children in order to identify potentially more serious obstructive sleep apnea."
The study was published in the June issue of the Pediatric Pulmonology journal.
Copyright 2007 iVillage Total Health.
