In an analysis of the sleep habits of over 72,000 people, researchers identified a particular pattern that can dramatically increase the risk of serious cardiovascular problems. The good news is that the pattern is relatively easy to avoid.

You’ve always known it and science continues to prove it: getting enough sleep is important for health. Poor sleep quality has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease in women, increased pain symptoms, a higher risk of developing dementia, and more.

Researchers are now focusing not only on how much sleep you get, but also on the type of sleep you get. For example, studies have found that sleeping too much can impair cognitive function, while going to bed and waking at irregular times has been linked to high blood pressure, obesity and other metabolic disorders.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that researchers in Australia and Canada have just found that irregular sleep patterns increase the risk of certain types of cardiovascular disease – including heart attack, heart failure and stroke – by 26%.

Researchers looked at 72,269 people aged between 40 and 79 who took part in the UK Biobank study, a large database of genetic, lifestyle and health information from over 500,000 British participants. None of the selected participants had a history of major cardiovascular events.

All participants wore an activity tracker for seven days. The data collected by these devices was then used to create a sleep regularity index (SRI) from 0 to 100 based on variability in bedtime, wake times, sleep duration, and frequency of waking during the night. People with SRIs above 87 were considered to have a regular sleep pattern, while those with values ​​below 72 were considered irregular sleepers. Those who fell between the two values ​​were considered moderately irregular sleepers.

After being classified as a regular, moderately irregular or regular sleeper, participants were monitored for incidents of heart attack, heart failure, stroke and cardiovascular death for the next eight years. Not only did the analysis find a 26% increased risk for irregular sleepers, but it also showed that moderately irregular sleepers have an 8% increased risk of serious cardiovascular disease.

The calculations that led the researchers to their conclusions took into account a wide range of factors that could potentially influence cardiovascular health, such as smoking, medication use, coffee and alcohol consumption, mental health issues, shift work, and more.

Enough is not enough

The researchers also examined sleep duration and how it compared to the generally recommended times: 7-9 hours for people aged 18 to 64 and 7-8 hours for people over 65. However, despite the targeted amount of sleep, those who suffered from irregular sleep patterns they still suffer from increased health risks. So get it enough Sleep wasn’t enough, the key came regular sleep phases Not much changed from day to day.

“Because of its role in cardiovascular health, sleep regularity needs to receive more attention in public health guidelines and clinical practice,” the researchers write in an article published in the journal Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Future studies are needed to examine whether interventions to improve sleep regularity can improve cardiovascular health.

Source: BMJ Group via Scimex.org