Snoring Runs in Families

A study of one-year-olds has found that children of parents who snore are three times as likely to snore as well. What’s the biggie? Children who suffer from severe snoring tend to have:

• Poor school performance
• Cardiovascular problems
• Daytime behavioral problems, e.g., attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Does this finding warrant this opening salvo from The New York Times?

Title: In the Genes: When the Littlest Family Member Snores, Too

Opening Sentence: Snoring may be genetic.

May I remind everyone that just because a family tends to have a particular trait like snoring doesn’t mean that it’s mainly due to genetics. As the article later goes on to point out, allergies play an important role as well; a positive allergy test almost doubled the risk for snoring. No definitive sleep disorder examination in a sleep laboratory was performed in this study and neither were any candidate genes identified.

Time to review genetics quiz #1: Genetic = Inherited?