There is a misconception in life that snoring is a sign of good sleep and good health, but now, as we learn more about sleep breathing disorders, we find that people who snore may have “obstructive sleep apnea syndrome”. Since the 1970s, researchers at Stanford University have been monitoring people’s sleep, including sleep status, breathing, heart rate and other items. They found that snoring causes sleep apnea and intermittent hypoxia in the body. Since then, sleep disorders have gradually been recognized. After the 1990s, it has become clear that many people who snore suffer from “obstructive sleep apnea syndrome”, or OSAHS for short. So, what is obstructive sleep apnea syndrome? This disease is characterized by snoring with apnea and superficial breathing during sleep, recurrent hypoxemia, hypercapnia and sleep structure disorders at night, resulting in daytime sleepiness, cardio-pulmonary vascular complications and even multi-organ damage, which seriously affects the quality of life and life expectancy of patients. OSAHS is generally more prevalent in men over the age of forty and in the postmenopausal female population. It is not clear what causes the onset of the disease, but obesity, thick and short neck, heavy smoking and alcohol abuse are prone to the disease. OSAHS is more likely to occur in people with jaw deformity, commonly known as “small chin or no chin”, who are prone to narrowing of the upper airway, i.e., the nose and throat, or fat accumulation, resulting in narrowing of the upper airway during sleep and snoring, which can lead to obstruction and sleep apnea if further developed. What are the symptoms that indicate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome? First of all, it is snoring and snoring sounds during sleep, irregular breathing, repeated snoring and apnea, or feeling suffocated or even being awakened. These conditions are seriously affecting the quality of sleep, which in turn can cause headache in the morning after waking up, lack of energy and dozing during the day, memory loss, and long-term persistence can lead to obesity, which can seriously affect psychology and intelligence, and even lead to male sexual dysfunction and sudden death. Many studies have shown that OSAHS can lead to complications such as hypertension, coronary heart disease and diabetes, and the incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease is more than three times that of normal people. People who snore may suffer from OSAHS. Of course, people may snore after exertion, satiety, or drinking, but what kind of snoring should be seen by a doctor. If you have risk factors such as obesity and a thick and short neck as described earlier, and you develop snoring during sleep, snoring, irregular breathing or even pauses, then you may need to see a respiratory doctor for a polysomnography test. This approach can clearly determine whether you have obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, after which you can take targeted treatment measures according to your specific condition. Currently, the main treatment measures include general treatment, surgery, non-invasive ventilator, oral orthodontic appliance and other methods. General treatment is weight loss, smoking and alcohol cessation, and sleeping in the lateral position. The recurrence rate of surgical treatment is high, and some studies have shown that up to 50% of patients will have snoring again after one year, and even some patients will have “non-snoring apnea”, which means that they do not snore anymore but still have apnea, and the harm to the body continues to exist. Therefore, non-invasive ventilator therapy is the most widely used treatment method, which can make snoring and breath-holding during sleep subside, eliminate intermittent oxygen deprivation at night, significantly improve or disappear daytime sleepiness, and significantly improve or disappear other accompanying symptoms such as depression; improve some complications caused by nighttime oxygen deprivation, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, cardiac arrhythmia, diabetes and stroke.