That Health Rules

How many hours of sleep do you have daily?  Does the duration matter?

Yes it does based on a new study published in Archives of Internal Medicine:

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Background  It is not known whether short duration of sleep is a predictor of future cardiovascular events in patients with hypertension.

Methods  To test the hypothesis that short duration of sleep is independently associated with incident cardiovascular diseases (CVD), we performed ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring in 1255 subjects with hypertension (mean [SD] age, 70.4 [9.9] years) and followed them for a mean period of 50 (23) months. Short sleep duration was defined as less than 7.5 hours (20th percentile). Multivariable Cox hazard models predicting CVD events were used to estimate the adjusted hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI) for short sleep duration. A riser pattern was defined when mean nighttime systolic BP exceeded daytime systolic BP. The end point was a cardiovascular event: stroke, fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), and sudden cardiac death.

Results 

• In multivariable analyses, short duration of sleep (<7.5 hours) was associated with incident CVD (hazard ratio [HR], 1.68; 95% CI, 1.06-2.66; P = .03).
• A synergistic interaction was observed between short sleep duration and the riser pattern (P = .09).
• When subjects were classified according to their sleep time and a riser vs nonriser pattern, the group with shorter sleep duration plus the riser pattern had a substantially and significantly higher incidence of CVD than the group with predominant normal sleep duration plus the nonriser pattern (HR, 4.43; 95% CI, 2.09-9.39; P < .001), independent of covariates.

Conclusions  Short duration of sleep is associated with incident CVD risk and the combination of the riser pattern and short duration of sleep that is most strongly predictive of future CVD, independent of ambulatory BP levels. Physicians should inquire about sleep duration in the risk assessment of patients with hypertension.

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It has long been known that sleep debt is one factor that affects a patient’s risk to develop diseases like diabetes.  This new study relates sleep deprivation to a more devastating illness of the cardiovascular system.

The study showed that if one sleeps less than 7.5 hours per night, he or she has a 68-percent higher risk to develop heart attack, stroke or cardiac arrest than the counterparts that sleep better.  Furthermore, if one does not show a drop in overnight blood pressure, the risk is even higher — a more than four-fold greater chance of heart attack, stroke or cardiac death.

Again,.. this boils down to STRESS! Stress factors deprive one of a good sleep… if one goes to bed with deep mental anguish and thoughts, this can result in a hyperactive nervous system that can manifest as anxiety.  Overwokred individuals with too many worries to think for the next day can suffer the fate of sleep debt.  You should seek help if suddenly in the middle of the night you are awake and unable to go back to sleep.  This can lead to non dipping of blood pressure overnight that can increase your risk of heart disease even more.

Dont go to sleep Angry or worried.  Associate your bed with good rest and leave worries for the next day!

Indeed…Sleep is GOOD!

This entry was posted on November 18, 2008 at 11:55 am and is filed under General Health Tips.