Irregular sleep accelerates the aging of the heart and vascular system – according to a study recently published by researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia and the University of Southern Denmark.
The researchers analyzed medical history data of over 300,000 middle-aged adults who suffer from irregular sleep, mainly sleep apnea and insomnia. The analysis of the data shows that there is a connection between sleep disorders and damage to the health of the heart, and the acceleration of its aging. For men, premature aging of the heart was observed by 6.7 years (compared to men without sleep disorders), and for women the difference is 7.3 years on average.
Prof. Emmanuel Stamatakis, one of the researchers who signed the study, pointed out that a third factor may be involved in the equation, which causes both damage to the cardiovascular system and sleep disorders. “Sleep disorders linked to breathing problems, such as cardiac arrest during sleep, are in many cases caused by factors that also endanger the cardiovascular system, such as obesity and lack of sports activity.”