If you've ever slept next to someone who sounds like this..... you probably consider snoring just a noisy [?] but new research out tonight says it can actually be a [?].

Snoring is one of the main signs of sleep apnea: when people stop [?] in the middle of the night. For the first time this new study makes a [?] connection. "It's given us probably the best evidence that we have that sleep apnea is a likely cause of [?]".

People suffering from sleep apnea, and there are millions, can stop breathing during sleep anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute and a half. A [?] person during the day becomes a time bomb at night. Normal blood pressure is 120 over 80 but a patient with sleep apnea can be [?] of 50% of their oxygen, doubling blood pressure to a [?] 220 ever 140.

A visit to New York University Sleep Disorders Clinic showed Raymond often stopped breathing during sleep. "Was that a [?] thing to realize? That was definitely ." Sleep expert Ana Krieger says he's lucky he came in. She believes the [?] between apnea and stroke is just the [?] of the iceberg. "This is definitely a new area and many of the cardiologists are very [?] about patients that have potential sleep apnea".

With heart disease our [?] killer, Krieger says doctors are looking more closely at sleep's [?] in cardiac health. So one of the [?] quesions a doctor will ask is "How are you sleeping?" "Absolutely".

There's still a lot of [?] to be done in this area and one of the big questions doctors will [?] now is: Can preventing sleep apnea actually prevent heart attack?
"How do you ever know if you've got it?" "Well, it is [?] underdiagnosed but one of the main reasons is: asking your [?] or the person you share your bed with. And that's how most people know they have it.