Snorers have suffered many indignities at the hands of partners - from stitching tennis balls into the back of nightshirts to wearing gum shields, nasal strips and neck collars - only to find they are still banished to the sofa by their long-suffering spouses.

Now doctors in Slovenia have put paid to the old wives' tales and urban myths by announcing that people are more likely to snore because of the shape of their throat.

The traditional reasons given for snoring, such as being overweight or having nasal obstructions, are all contributing factors, but for some people it is simply down to physiology.

Alcohol has always been partly blamed and drinkers are not being given the green light to indulge. Along with some sleeping pills, drink is known to relax the throat muscles, including the soft palate at the back of the mouth which vibrates when we snore.

The airflow as we breathe in our sleep causes negative pressure at the back of the mouth, sucking down the soft palate which then vibrates to make the snoring sound.

The bigger the difference between the size of the mouth and the throat, the louder the noise will be, rising up to almost 70 decibels in some cases - equivalent to a pneumatic drill.

The Slovenian study, published in this month's Chest magazine, involved 40 patients who were all given CT scans and interviewed along with their spouses about their sleeping patterns.

After being split into three groups of non-snorers (14), moderate snorers (13) and loud snorers (13), the shapes of their mouths were measured and analysed.

Detailed measurements of the inside of all patients' mouths were taken from the images, including the angle of the roof of the mouth, the area behind the root of the tongue and the length of the uvula - the small "punchbag" of muscle that hangs down at the back of the throat.

It was found that the throat in non-snorers was on average 3.6 times narrower than the mouth. In moderate snorers it was 4.7 times narrower and in the loudest snorers the narrowing ratio was 8.6.

"The results were highly significant, showing that a greater inspiratory narrowing is characteristic for snoring persons," said Igor Fajdiga, author of the research. "Furthermore, the narrowing was proportional to the loudness of snoring."

Around 15 million people suffer from snoring in the UK, with men outnumbering women more than two to one because they have naturally smaller throats. Elderly people, whose muscles are weaker, and the overweight, who have flabbier soft palates, are also more likely to be sufferers.

As well as being antisocial, snoring can have serious consequences, including sleep apnoea, when the sufferer stops breathing for short periods, leading to high blood pressure, an increased risk of diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

But solutions are hard to come by and recent research into the effectiveness of surgery has been disappointing.

"Surgery is by no means entirely successful. It is done to tighten up the tissue but after a few years it just relaxes again, starts to vibrate and the snoring is back," said John Gibson, president of the British Thoracic Society.

"Snoring is simply down to the shape and size of the throat and anything that makes it narrower will make snoring much more likely."