Hi, how did you sleep? Did you sleep on your side? If you face snoring or OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea) issues, regardless of the severity, we recommend you using a lateral sleeping position based on our research.
In 2008, Professor Jennifer Walsh, Ph.D. and her team conducted an experiment with 11 OSA patients and 11 healthy volunteers (with similar age and BMI). Everyone’s AHI (Apnea-Hypopnea Index) in supine or lateral positions are shown in table 1. It turned out that all test subjects’ AHI lowered significantly after changing positions from supine to lateral.
To discover the reason, they analyzed the OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) images of the velopharynx and oropharynx in the supine and lateral postures. When awake subjects changed to the lateral position, their airway OCTs had a more circular shape, which can resist airway obstruction more effectively (shown in Figure 1).
In 2002, the team of Shiroh Isono, M.D. also did similar tests. The subjects were initially premedicated with 0.5 mg atropine to mimic sleep status. As shown in Figures 2 and 3, the data supported that lateral position decreases the collapsibility of the passive pharynx in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.
Based on the above findings, we will keep working on new products to improve our users’ snoring concerns. Sleep Medicine is still a relatively new area waiting to be explored. Since relevant researches began in the 1950s, there are still distances between research papers and consumer awareness. And we hope to bring those expert findings to a lovely digital product at your home.
Wish you have a good dream tonight.