Sleep for 7 hours a day, not more or less, to keep your heart healthy – WVU Study

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Seven hours of sleep a day, including naps, keeps your heart healthy, and anything less or more could cause heart disease, according to a study by West Virginia University’s (WVU) faculty of medicine research team published in their journal “Sleep”.

Sleeping for less than five hours a day can significantly impact cardiovascular health, with increased risk of angina, coronary heart disease or even heart attack, according to the study. Similarly it suggests that sleeping more than nine hours also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.  Seven hours is seen as the ideal sleep duration, including naps, and less or more than two hours deviation from this optimum is likely to increase the risk of heart disease by one-and-a-half times than that of the person who sleeps seven hours.

The group found to be at the highest risk was the under-60 adults who sleep five hours or less a day, enhancing their chance of getting a cardiovascular disease more than three times compared to people who sleep only seven hours. Women were not far behind with more than two-and-a-half times as likely, in a similar context.

The study also associated short sleep durations with angina, and having too little or too much sleep with heart attack and stroke.

The research team analysed data obtained from a 2005 US national health survey on more than 30,000 adults. The survey data included aspects such as demographics, lifestyle and health and the results were also adjusted for factors such as age, sex, smoking or non-smoking, alcohol, etc. The study excluded people with diabetes, high blood pressure or depression.

The study explains that the duration of sleep impacts endocrine and metabolic functions, and sleep deprivation is a possible cause for impaired glucose tolerance, reduced insulin sensitivity and increased blood pressure, all of which increase the likelihood of hardened arteries.

“Our study findings suggest that abnormal sleep duration adversely affects cardiovascular health,” said research team leader Anoop Shankar, MD, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Community Medicine at WVU.  “Sleep disturbances may be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease even among apparently healthy subjects.”

The  scientific journal SLEEP is published monthly by the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC, a joint venture of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.

Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society

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Posted by Crazymcnick81@yahoo.com on Aug 3 2010. Filed under Featured, Health, New. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.