The pill that targets snorers

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If you, or your better half, has problems snoring, a new daily pill could be the answer to all your woes.



Scientists are currently trialling a drug, known only as BGC20-0166, that targets the areas of the brain which control the muscles in your airway and the airflow.



Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSA) is the name given to severe snoring disorders and currently affects one in 20 middle-aged men, and one in 50 women.



The new drug is a combination of two existing anti-snoring drugs and in limited trials has so far proved more effective than either of the two drugs used independently, or a placebo.



'The results from this trial demonstrate the potential of this drug to decrease sleep apnoea in some patients and normalise it in others,' Thomas Roth, an advisor to the life sciences company BTG who are researching the drug and director of the Sleep Disorders and Research Centre at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, said.



'Future research is needed to precisely define the role of the drug.'



However, not everyone's convinced this is the answer.



'At the moment, the consensus is that there is no drug therapy that would be completely successful in treating OSA,' Marianne Davey, director of the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association, told the Daily Mail.

Tuesday 15 April 2008

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