If you’ve ever been woken up by a sharp kick in the shins and protestations of ‘Oh my god, will you please stop snoring?!’ then you’ll know just how disruptive snoring can be. But, inconvenienced loved ones aside, you may have decided that snoring is no big deal - but it is! There's a link between snoring, blood sugars, and body weight. In this blog, we dive into the detail and offer advice on how to stop snoring by making a few adjustments to your daily lifestyle.
Here’s the thing: snoring isn’t just an inconvenience for the people closest to us. If it’s frequent, it can signal that lifestyle adjustments need to be made.
It can also be symptomatic of sleep apnea – a sleep disorder where your breathing is restricted (More on that to come.)
Add to that, frequent snoring disrupts the quality and quantity of YOUR sleep and can leave you feeling tired during the day.
In turn, that can affect the choices you make about what to eat and how to move your body.
Being overweight
First up, let’s look at the role of excess weight. A poor diet can often contribute to weight gain. Likewise, unbalanced blood sugars can make it difficult to maintain a healthy weight.
While being overweight doesn’t always cause snoring, it can greatly increase your chances of it.
Why so? Well, snoring occurs when your throat muscles relax.
Your throat becomes narrow and floppy and the walls of your throat vibrate when you breathe in and out, producing that familiar snoring sound.
If you’re carrying excess weight, fat can deposit around the neck, blocking and compressing your upper airways, contributing to snoring.
It’s not just the neck. The size of the tongue also increases along with body size and this blocks airways. Additionally, carrying extra weight around your middle can increase the likelihood of snoring too as it can push your diaphragm up and constrict your upper airways.
This puts pressure on your lungs and reduces airflow, leading to snoring.
For the same reasons, being overweight is a significant risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea.
Research shows even a 10% increase in body mass index (BMI) is associated with an increased risk of obstructive sleep apnea.
Blood sugars
There’s a lot to digest when it comes to the link between blood sugars and snoring. First up, sleep-disordered breathing is associated with higher glucose levels.
And more severe sleep breathing issues are associated with higher blood sugar.
Wondering why? One reason is because during a sleep apnea episode, your body is deprived of oxygen.
This increases levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. In turn, that can increase insulin resistance, leading to higher blood sugar levels.
Additionally, research suggests that waking up during the night may also cause an increase in insulin resistance and a decrease in glucose tolerance.
It’s a vicious circle too, because, if you’re diabetic, poor-quality sleep is linked with a reduced ability to control glucose levels. That’s according to a study on sleep quality and type 2 diabetes published in 2021.
Type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea have a bidirectional relationship – that basically means that both conditions affect the development and progression of the other.
Something else to note?
There’s research to suggest that snoring may be associated with dysregulation in leptin and ghrelin too – hormones important in the regulation of appetite.
In this sense, eating satiating foods (i.e. those that keep you fuller for longer) is key.
How to combat snoring with lifestyle changes
Prioritise weight loss
If snoring or obstructed sleep apnea is a concern, then focusing on healthy, sustainable weight loss should be your first priority.
There are many reasons for weight gain and there are many different weight loss approaches out there.
At Integral Wellness, we know that fads are never the answer. (Actually, we wrote a blog about it here.)
Drastic calorie cuts can equal drastic weight loss – that’s no secret. But while you may initially drop some lbs/kgs, the results won’t last – and you’ll probably make yourself miserable in the process.
Here are some changes you can make to your diet to achieve long-term weight loss:
- Fill your plates with variety and colour
- Enjoy a balance of all macro and micronutrients (protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, minerals etc)
- Balance your blood sugars
- Feed your gut microbiome (the bacteria in your large intestine that can be responsible for resistant weight loss and poor blood sugar control)
- Stay hydrated
And if you need 1-1 nutrition support from a qualified nutritional therapist, you can find that here.
Eat more plant-based foods
While we’re on the topic of diet, research suggests that eating more plant-based foods may reduce snoring.
A 2024 study found people who eat a healthy, plant-based diet that is high in vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and nuts are less likely to experience obstructive sleep apnoea.
An important point to note? Food quality is key when eating plant-based.
The same study found that people eating a diet high in unhealthy plant-based foods were at a 22% higher risk compared to people who didn’t include these foods in their diets.
Find ways to move more
Did you know that exercise can aid blood sugar control? And when combined with diet it’s a great way to manage your weight.
Basically? Exercise has a two-fold impact on snoring, helping you balance your blood sugars and achieve a healthy weight.
That said, research suggests that exercise reduces the severity of obstructive sleep apnea even with no changes in BMI, so you don’t have to drop lbs to see the benefit.
It’s best to find an exercise you enjoy, but don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything fancy or intimidating.
In fact, walking is one of the most effective ways to manage your blood sugars and here at Integral Wellness, we’ve compiled a free guide that helps you balance your blood sugars with walking.
Click here if you’d like to receive it.
Takeaway
It’s easy to dismiss snoring as just one of those things. But it’s important to pay attention to it because anything that disrupts the quality of your sleep will have a knock-on effect on your overall health.
It can translate to a higher risk of type-2 diabetes, higher body weight, and high blood pressure to name a few.
(Did you know, for example, that one of the most interesting connections with snoring and blood pressure is that if you snore, you don’t get into the parasympathetic rest and digest mode during the night so you remain in fight and flight, impacting blood pressure?)
And another thing, just because you fall asleep straight away doesn’t mean you’re getting quality sleep. Exhaustion can make it feel like you’re getting a great night’s sleep because you’re falling asleep so fast, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting proper rest.
Waking up feeling groggy and lacking increase can be a sign of insulin resistance too.
Fortunately, you can reduce snoring by making changes to your diet and moving more. That equals a more peaceful night’s sleep for you and anyone in your vicinity.
