Three investigations whose results have been publicly presented shortly after each other have explored to what extent there is a relationship between little sleep and suffering from certain cardiovascular ailments.
Soomi Lee’s team, from the University of South Florida in the United States, reviewed sleep data from 6,820 American adults with a mean age of 53 who reported how much and how much they slept and their history of heart disease. Among the participants, 633 also wore a wrist device that tracked how much and how much they slept.
The researchers focused on multiple aspects of sleep health, such as degree of regularity, level of satisfaction, intensity of alertness during waking hours, when they slept, sleep efficiency, and how many hours they slept, and compared all this information with that related to heart diseases diagnosed by doctors. They found that each additional increase in self-reported sleep problems was associated with a 54% increased risk of heart disease. The estimated risk of heart disease associated with increased sleep health problems was much higher for those who also wore the device on the wrist. With the extra information provided by the device, the increase was 141%.
This study is entitled “Sleep health composites are associated with the risk of heart disease across sex and race”. And it has been published in the academic journal Scientific Reports.
Kelsie Full’s team, from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, have completed a study on the relationship between the risk of atherosclerosis for older people and the degree of irregularity in their sleep habits.
The number of hours we sleep influences our cardiovascular health much more than it might seem. (Photo: Amazings/NCYT)
Atherosclerosis is the buildup of fatty deposits, commonly referred to as plaque, on the walls of the arteries. Plaque can narrow the arteries, reducing blood flow and the amount of oxygen and other nutrients that are carried through the body. Or the plaque can burst and create a blood clot that blocks the artery, which could lead to a heart attack or stroke.
The study was carried out on more than 2,000 adults, with a mean age of 69 years. Slightly more than half of the participants were women.
Research results indicate that sleeping an inconsistent number of hours each night and falling asleep at different times may increase the risk of developing atherosclerosis among adults age 45 and older, compared with people with more consistent sleep habits.
Consequently, maintaining a consistent sleep pattern may play an important role in preventing cardiovascular disease among adults.
This study is titled “Sleep Irregularity and Subclinical Markers of Cardiovascular Disease: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis”. And it has been published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The international team of Bo-Huei Huang and Emmanuel Stamatakis, both from the University of Sydney in Australia, has completed a study aimed at determining to what extent there is a relationship between little sleep and the number of years of future life that the person will spend without suffer from cardiovascular problems.
The study authors analyzed data from more than 300,000 middle-aged adults and found that different sleep disturbances are associated with different lengths of said future time in which the person will be free of cardiovascular problems.
Specifically, men with sleep-related breathing problems lost nearly seven years of CVD-free life compared to those without CVD. In the case of women, those with such problems lost more than seven years compared to those without.
Less serious but more common conditions such as sleeping less than necessary, suffering from insomnia, snoring, going to bed much later than usual, and experiencing daytime sleepiness were found to be associated with a loss of about two years in time. of life with normal heart health, in both men and women.
This study is titled “Influence of poor sleep on cardiovascular disease-free life expectancy: a multi-resource-based population cohort study”. And it has been published in the academic journal BMC Medicine. (Fountain: NCYT de Amazings)