If you’ve been a long-suffering partner of someone who snores, you may have some reason to hope for a solution. Scientists are currently working on a pill that can help stop snoring. The trial they’re working on is based on a study at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. As it turns out, the study shows that a nightly tablet that contains two non-sleep drugs may be the key to helping stop snoring. SleepEducation reports that 24% of women and more than 40% of men snore in the United States on a daily basis. That means that nearly a third of the country lives with someone who snores, and my wife is one of them.
My wife says I snore and I feel her pain because when she had a sinus infection, she snored and it was unbearable. I can’t imagine having to listen to it every single night. But it’s not just spouses. Sometimes, people are living with a snorer who is a parent or roommate and the snoring disrupts sleep. The study is from 2018 and it found that the tablet taken nightly reduced the snoring of volunteers by 75%. There were only 20 volunteers, but the study is still promising. In fact, specifically, the study showed that the reduction in breathing interruptions went from 28.5 per hour to only 7.5 per house, a significant difference.
The pill to stop snoring: Once-a-night tablet eases the symptoms of sleep apnoea https://t.co/ooMxZo4OnY
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) October 27, 2020
Two years after the study, researchers are working together to find a possible therapy for this problem that is faced by so many people around the world. The trial is being sponsored by a Cambridge, Massachusetts company called Apnimed. Snoring occurs when facial muscles relax while a person is sleeping, leading to a narrow opening for air to pass through as the person breathes. The scary part is that more than 22 million suffer from a condition that deprives them of oxygen: Obstructive Sleep Apnea. These people are usually overweight, over 40 years old, or heavy drinkers.
US scientists have found that a new pill combining two common drugs could be the key to curing snoring 😴 https://t.co/dKrGH8gQUa pic.twitter.com/94HwjUUrjw
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) October 27, 2020
The pill is code-named AD109 and combines two medications already on the market: Atomoxetine and Oxybutynin. Atomoxetine has been used for nearly 20 years to treat kids with ADHD and Oxybutynin is typically prescribed to treat bladder control loss. Here’s a video about this story.