Relation of habitual snoring with components of metabolic syndrome in Korean adults

AIMS: To examine the association between habitual snoring and components of the metabolic syndrome in Korean adults. Whether these associations are independent of obesity was also explored. METHODS: Four thousand five hundred and six men and 5041 women aged 40-69 years from the Korean Health and Genome Study were examined. Information of snoring frequency was obtained by a questionnaire and components of the metabolic syndrome were measured. RESULTS: There was a clear dose-response relationship between the increasing frequency of snoring and the higher prevalence of each component of the metabolic syndrome (P<0.001). After adjustment for age, abdominal obesity, and the other metabolic components, hypertension was significantly associated with a 1.2-fold excess of habitual snoring in both men (P<0.05) and women (P<0.05). The association of habitual snoring with hypertension was unaltered by obesity. Regardless of the presence or absence of abdominal obesity, there was an increase in the prevalence of habitual snoring as the number of metabolic abnormalities increased. CONCLUSIONS: Habitual snoring is associated with hypertension independent of obesity. While the relationship between habitual snoring and obesity is well recognized, characterization of the role of the other components of the metabolic syndrome as a cause or result of habitual snoring warrants a further study.