CHICAGO: People who sleep less than six hours per night or more than
eight are more likely to suffer heart problems than people who sleep between
six and eight hours, said a US study on Sunday.
The findings confirm those in previous, smaller studies, but are based
on what researchers described as a nationally representative sample of 3,000
people covering five separate heart ailments and their links to sleep duration.
The subjects for the study were people over age 45 who participated in
a survey of health issues in US households known as the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey.
Subjects were asked to describe their sleep patterns and were also
asked if they were ever told they had congestive heart failure, heart attack,
coronary artery disease, angina or stroke.
People who said they got too little sleep each night were two times
more likely to have a stroke or heart attack and 1.6 more likely to have
congestive heart failure than people who slept between six and eight hours
nightly, the researchers said.
People who said they slept more than eight hours per night were two
times more likely to have angina and 1.1 times more likely to have coronary
artery disease.
"We now have an indication that sleep can impact heart health, and
it should be a priority," said principal investigator Rohit Arora,
chairman of cardiology and professor of medicine, the Chicago Medical School.
"Based on these findings, it seems getting six to eight hours of
sleep everyday probably confers the least risk for cardiovascular disease over
the long term."
- AFP/wm
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