11.20.20
Sleep is essential to cardiovascular health, according to a new study relying upon data sourced from 408,802 UK Biobank participants.
According to the study, getting 7-8 hours of sleep per night, and having no frequent bouts of insomnia, reduced the risk of heart failure for this sizeable population by a whopping 42%. At the time of recruitment, the hundreds of thousands of participants were between the ages of 37 and 73, and were recruited between the years 2006 and 2010 after which their health data was tracked until 2019.
Sleep behaviors were collected through touchscreen questionnaires, which allowed researchers to categorize a multitude of sleep behaviors. They determined associations related to sleep duration, insomnia, snoring, whether a participant was an early bird or night owl, or if they had any daytime sleepiness. The participants were broken into three groups – short (less than 7 hours a day), recommended (7-8 hours a day), or prolonged (9 hours or more a day).
Throughout the duration of the study, researchers recorded 5,221 incidences of heart failure during a median follow-up of 10 years.
After adjusting for diabetes, hypertension, medication use, genetic variations, and other co-variates, participants in the recommended group saw a 42% reduction in the risk of heart failure compared to people with an unhealthy sleep pattern. Heart failure was also 8% lower in early risers, 12% lower in those who slept 7-8 hours daily, 17% lower in those who did not have frequent insomnia, and 34% lower in those reporting no daytime sleepiness.
“The healthy sleep score we created was based on the scoring of these five sleep behaviors,” Lu Qi, MD, PhD, corresponding author and professor of epidemiology and director of the Obesity Research Center at Tulane University, said. “Our findings highlight the importance of improving overall sleep patterns to help prevent heart failure.”
Because the study was a point-in-time assessment of self-reported sleep patterns and behaviors, the authors said that their findings were limited in that they didn’t reflect potential changes in behavior over the ten-year median follow-up period. Nonetheless, the study highlights the potential importance of overall sleep behaviors in the prevention of heart failure.
According to the study, getting 7-8 hours of sleep per night, and having no frequent bouts of insomnia, reduced the risk of heart failure for this sizeable population by a whopping 42%. At the time of recruitment, the hundreds of thousands of participants were between the ages of 37 and 73, and were recruited between the years 2006 and 2010 after which their health data was tracked until 2019.
Sleep behaviors were collected through touchscreen questionnaires, which allowed researchers to categorize a multitude of sleep behaviors. They determined associations related to sleep duration, insomnia, snoring, whether a participant was an early bird or night owl, or if they had any daytime sleepiness. The participants were broken into three groups – short (less than 7 hours a day), recommended (7-8 hours a day), or prolonged (9 hours or more a day).
Throughout the duration of the study, researchers recorded 5,221 incidences of heart failure during a median follow-up of 10 years.
After adjusting for diabetes, hypertension, medication use, genetic variations, and other co-variates, participants in the recommended group saw a 42% reduction in the risk of heart failure compared to people with an unhealthy sleep pattern. Heart failure was also 8% lower in early risers, 12% lower in those who slept 7-8 hours daily, 17% lower in those who did not have frequent insomnia, and 34% lower in those reporting no daytime sleepiness.
“The healthy sleep score we created was based on the scoring of these five sleep behaviors,” Lu Qi, MD, PhD, corresponding author and professor of epidemiology and director of the Obesity Research Center at Tulane University, said. “Our findings highlight the importance of improving overall sleep patterns to help prevent heart failure.”
Because the study was a point-in-time assessment of self-reported sleep patterns and behaviors, the authors said that their findings were limited in that they didn’t reflect potential changes in behavior over the ten-year median follow-up period. Nonetheless, the study highlights the potential importance of overall sleep behaviors in the prevention of heart failure.
