How Alcohol Raises the Odds of Sleep Apnoea

Pulling together 21 studies on alcohol and sleep-disordered breathing, this meta-analysis quantified something long suspected but rarely measured across a large pooled sample: does drinking more alcohol genuinely raise the risk of sleep apnoea? The answer was yes, with higher alcohol consumption associated with a 25 percent increase in relative risk. The finding held up across different ways of defining both alcohol consumption and sleep apnoea, and across different study designs and quality levels, which strengthens confidence in the overall direction of the result.

The authors were transparent about two real limitations: statistical heterogeneity between the underlying studies was high, meaning the studies varied more than chance alone would explain, and there was measurable evidence of publication bias, where studies finding a link may be more likely to get published than those that don't. Association also isn't causation on its own. Still, combined with the well-established mechanism, alcohol relaxing the muscles that keep the airway open, this is a solid population-level reason to treat evening drinking as relevant to anyone managing snoring or suspected apnoea.