People who do not get enough restful sleep may be at a raised risk of ischaemic heart disease and stroke, a new study suggests.
Dr Nobuo Sasaki of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Casualty Council, Japan, and colleagues investigated the possible link with cardiovascular disease, as poor sleep has previously been linked to hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
They used figures from annual health checks on 12,876 adult men and women. Elements of sleep that were measured included poor sleep quality, longer sleep latency, short sleep duration, lower sleep efficiency, higher sleep disturbances, use of sleeping pills, and daytime dysfunction.
Analysis showed that poor sleep was significantly linked with both ischemic heart disease and stroke, even once age, sex, body mass index, smoking, alcohol intake, and presence of hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidaemia were taken into account.
Results were presented yesterday (29 August) at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2017 held in Barcelona, Spain. The researchers state: "Poor sleep was associated with both ischemic heart disease and stroke. Interestingly, higher sleep disturbances and short sleep duration were associated only with ischemic heart disease. These results support the hypothesis that deterioration of sleep may lead to cardiovascular disease."
Dr Sasaki says: "The proportion of people suffering from sleep disturbances is around 1.5-fold higher among patients with previous ischaemic heart disease or stroke compared to those with no history of cardiovascular disease.
"Difficulty maintaining sleep reflects an increase in sleep fragmentation, which refers to brief moments of waking up and causes overactivity of the sympathetic nervous system and adrenocortical axis. Our results support the hypothesis that sleep deterioration may lead to cardiovascular disease. Poor sleep in patients with ischaemic heart disease may be characterised by shorter sleep and brief moments of waking up."
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