Sleep hours are already a de facto parameter for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Thus, it is added to the other seven traditional ones -tobacco, physical activity, diet, obesity, blood glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure-, as the American Heart Association has just reported in a study published in the «Journal of the American Heart Association ».
The American association is based on data from a study of nearly 2,000 middle-aged and older adults. The Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), underway in the US, analyzes the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.
The research evaluated which sleep parameters should be prioritized for CVD prevention.
This is the first study to show that hhours of sleep add predictive value independently for CVD events.
The findings underscore that both cardiovascular health scores that included sleep duration alone as a measure of overall sleep health and cardiovascular health scores that included multiple dimensions of sleep health (sleep duration, efficiency, and regularity , daytime sleepiness, and sleep disturbance) were predictors of future CVD.
As for the measurement of sleep duration, sleeping 7 hours or more but less than 9 hours each night was considered indicative of ideal sleep health.
“Our results demonstrate that sleep is an integral component of CVD,” said Nour Makarem, of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and lead author of the study. “Our results underscore the importance of taking a holistic view of sleep health that includes sleep behaviors and high-prevalence mild sleep problems rather than strictly focusing on sleep disorders when assessing a patient’s cardiovascular risk. individual”.
Sleep is an integral component of cardiovascular disease
According to Makarem, the finding that both a sleep health score based solely on sleep duration and a sleep health score based on multiple dimensions of sleep improved the definition of cardiovascular health can be explained, at least in part. , by the grouping of sleep problems.
The study showed that individuals with a cshort sleep duration were more likely to have low sleep efficiency (
Specifically, poor sleepers also had a higher prevalence of overweight/obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension, suggesting that multiple dimensions of unhealthy sleep may occur simultaneously and potentially interact, further increasing heart disease risk .
“Healthcare professionals should assess their patients’ sleep patterns, discuss sleep-related issues, and educate patients about the importance of prioritizing sleep to promote good cardiovascular health,” Makarem said.
“This study provides compelling evidence that sleep measurements are an important factor in cardiovascular health,” says David Goff of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who was not part of the study team.
“Recognizing sleep as an integral part of heart health is a transformative step toward reducing the global burden of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death, and reducing the health disparities associated with it.”