Interesting information from Dr. Allen Roberds

Not long ago I wrote in my weekly e-mail commentary, “Now here’s a question for y’all to ponder over the weekend: Why do people who snore always fall asleep first?” It was joke, but I got a serious response from Dr. Allen Roberds. His answer interested me so much that I want to share with you.

Hello Franklin,

Pardon my serious answer to a funny question. I tried, but could not come up with a funny answer. Snoring is a serious issue and the short answer to your question, “Why do people who snore always fall asleep first?” is because they are the most tired.

What causes snoring?

I used to snore myself. To find a logical cause I went back to my anatomy and physiology texts. I found none directly, as in “A tired heart causes snoring, because...,” but I was easily able to reason out the simple mechanism after a quick review of human physiology. I want to add here that it doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure this stuff out—just a little motivation and “common sense.”

Snoring occurs when the muscles of the palate mildly relax. That partially shuts off the air passage to the lungs, compelling the patient to inhale more vigorously to force air past the blockage and into the lungs—thus the dreaded snoring sound. It’s similar to a trumpet player pressing his lips together and forcing air out of his mouth and into the trumpet, except that the resulting sound isn’t as pleasant.

But why?

The question that allopathic medical practitioners, never seem to ask is, “How come?” They wait until the underlying condition, which caused the snoring, gets worse and the muscles collapse. This totally shuts off the air passage and then they give it a new name, “sleep apnea.” That’s the name of the symptom, not the cause, which is much like calling an overheated car engine, “thermostat fever” or “over-active thermostat,” in which case the medical model would be to remove the thermostat, rather than address the reason for the overheated engine.

Consequently, that deteriorating underlying condition forces the patient to work harder and harder to get oxygen, and eventually causes the patient to wake up more and more often during the night, or suffocate.

But what is the underlying condition? Why do people snore?

The answer is, “Snoring is a symptom of a tired, or weakened heart.” Because the heart muscle is the body’s primary muscle, when it grows tired it naturally likes to take a rest whenever it can. Relaxing, and even an irregular heartbeat (cardiac arrhythmia) provides just that opportunity, because when the heart relaxes or skips a beat it gets to rest. Even tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) can be a symptom of a tired heart. Just as a person with weak or tired legs takes smaller, and therefore quicker steps, to cover the same ground, the heart takes smaller and quicker beats to try and get its job done.

Because it is the body’s primary muscle, when the heart relaxes the body’s other muscles will also relax reflexively (observe the typical ‘slack jawed’ appearance of the “snorer.”) When the muscles in the back of the throat relax, the patient snores. And it gets worse, as the underlying cause gets worse, unless we address that underlying cause—the tired heart!

The medical approach is to treat the heart’s solution as its problem and to give a drug that stimulates the heart to beat anyway. This is akin to whipping a tired horse rather than asking why he’s tired.

Symptoms of a tired heart vary from snoring to crying at Hallmark commercials (“tender hearted”), a loss of voice timbre upon mild exertion (typical “old man’s voice”), loss of ambition (“can’t get one’s heart into things anymore”), erectile dysfunction (the body’s way of saying, “sex is not worth a heart attack”), difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, sleep apnea, and cardiomegaly or enlarged heart. Enlargement occurs when the heart is weak and the body tries to compensate by building up more heart muscle. The last I heard, surgeons were cutting out the new heart muscle tissue of “enlarged heart” patients and calling it a “face lift for the heart.” Another case of allopathic medicine treating the body’s solution as the problem.

A logical solution

Logically speaking, there are three ways to turn a challenge into a problem or make a problem worse.

  1. Do nothing, when something is required.
  2. Do something, when nothing is required.
  3. Intervene at the wrong logical level.

The logical solution to any health challenge is to address the cause and provide the natural conditions always necessary for health to occur.

In this case, there are two major causes of heart dysfunction; improper biostructural mechanics and lack of proper nutrients.

The structural part

The structural component is common. It is a constriction, caused by dural tension, of the heart and/or the nerves to the heart. Dural tension results from a distortion of the skull (cranial fault) commonly caused by the birthing process, tooth extraction, and wearing braces. Dural tension can put mechanical stress directly on the heart, making it work harder, and/or put stress on the nerves to the heart, compromising heart function up to 60%. Great success has been obtained by removing biomechanical stress from the heart and nerves with BioCranial Technique.

The nutritional part

The nutritional component is also very common and arises from long term lack of proper nutrients to the heart muscle, or, in some cases, other heart-affecting organs, such as adrenals, thyroid, cerebellum, gallbladder or blood. In these cases, too, positive results have been obtained with proper nutrition. (For more information about nutritional supplements for these other organs, please request them from Dr. Roberds at the addresses below.)

Rebuilding and strengthening a tired heart is addressed with Cardio-plus which rebuilds heart muscle, and Cataplex E 2, which doubles the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, so the heart doesn’t have to work as hard while it is regenerating. (These two products are made only by Standard Process. For references see Standard Process Whole Food Supplements Catalog of Tab Sheets, or view tab sheets at under the heading of Literature/Tab Sheets. Standard Process products are carried by chiropractors, naturopaths, some osteopaths, and other natural health care providers, but Standard Process does not sell to the public.)

From my own personal experience (my snoring stopped and my enthusiasm of former days increased and I’m still going strong at 66) and from my clinical experience with patients, I feel this is the approach of choice, over all others, barring any mitigating circumstances, none of which I have yet to encounter.

Reading back over this, I remember that when I was a young boy, I asked my mother, may she rest in peace, a question she couldn’t answer. She said that I should go and ask my dad. She said I responded, “That’s alright Mom, I didn’t want to know that much about it.” I hope I haven’t deluged you with more than you wanted to know.

I later found out that Dad, may he rest in peace, had an IQ of 152.

May God Bless you with Abundant Health,

Allen Roberds

Dr. Allen Roberds, DC, Dipl Ac (IAMA), BCS, practices chiropractic medicine in Fayetteville, Arkansas and will be glad to answer questions about this article by letter or e-mail. You may contact him at 4038 Remington Dr. Suite 3, Fayetteville, AR 72703, (479) 582-1444 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). For Information on Biocranial Technique, go to


Originally published March 2007