Healthy people who have poor sleep habits may be putting themselves at risk for early signs of heart disease, a new study suggests.
People who get too much or too little sleep -- or not enough quality rest -- are more likely to suffer from stiffened arteries and calcium deposits on the walls of their major arteries, said study lead author Dr. Chan-Won Kim. Coronary calcium develops way before heart attack symptoms occur, and a greater amount of calcium in the coronary arteries predicts future development of heart disease.
It is recommended for people to sleep for at least seven hours seven hours, researchers reported. People who got more or less sleep tended to have increased signs of potential future heart problems.
Earlier studies have linked poor sleep to bad heart health, but this research goes a step further by looking for precursors of heart diseasein people who appear healthy, said Dr. David Meyerson, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore and a national spokesman for the American Heart Association.
"Quality and duration of sleep is not always asked by every physician during a cardiovascular risk assessment session, and perhaps it should be," he said.
While the study uncovered a link between poor sleep and potential heart problems, it did not prove a cause-and-effect connection.
The study involved more than 47,000 young and middle-aged adults who completed a sleep questionnaire and had advanced tests to measure arterial stiffness and detect early artery lesions caused by calcium deposits.
The findings revealed that study participants who:
- got five or fewer hours of sleep a day had 50 percent more calcium in their arteries than those who slept seven hours a day.
- slept nine or more hours a day had at least 70 percent more calcium compared to those who slept seven hours.
- reported poor sleep quality had more than 20 percent more calcium than those who reported good sleep quality
During sleep, a complex dance of metabolic changes, hormone releases, body repair and brain refreshment takes place. These processes affect blood pressure, blood sugar, inflammation, stress hormones and a host of other factors that can increase risk of heart disease, the cardiologists said.
"We know our bodies every day need this ability to recharge our batteries, to put everything at ease and calm everything down," Urman said, adding that poor sleep has been linked to heart risk factors likediabetes and obesity.
Sleep should be considered part of an overall heart-healthy lifestyle, Urman said.
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