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By Dennis Thompson<\/b>
HealthDay Reporter<\/i><\/p>\n
THURSDAY, Aug. 27, 2020<\/p>\n
A frequent need to nap could be a red flag for future heart<\/a> problems and a higher risk of early death, a new analysis concludes.<\/p>\n Long naps lasting more than an hour are associated with a 34% elevated risk of heart disease<\/a> and a 30% greater risk of death, according to the combined results of 20 previous studies.<\/p>\n Overall, naps of any length were associated with a 19% increased risk of premature death, a Chinese research team found. The study results were released Wednesday for presentation at the virtual annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology.<\/p>\n “If you want to take a siesta, our study indicates it’s safest to keep it under an hour,” lead researcher Zhe Pan of Guangzhou Medical University said in a society news release. “For those of us not in the habit of a daytime slumber, there is no convincing evidence to start.”<\/p>\n For their study, the researchers analyzed data from 20 studies involving more than 313,000 participants. About two in five people in the studies said they nap.<\/p>\n The investigators found that the connection was more pronounced in people aged 65 and older: These older folks had a 27% higher risk of death associated with napping and a 36% greater risk of heart disease<\/a>. Women also had a stronger association between napping and poor health, with a 22% greater risk of death and a 31% greater risk of heart<\/a> problems.<\/p>\n Interestingly, long naps were linked with an increased risk of death in people who sleep<\/a> more than six hours a night. That would seem to rule out poor sleep<\/a> as an explanation for the increased risk of death and heart health issues.<\/p>\n Adults who get less than seven hours of sleep<\/a> each night are more likely to say they’ve had a heart attack<\/a>, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>. Poor sleep<\/a> also has been linked to high blood pressure<\/a>, type 2 diabetes<\/a> and obesity<\/a>, all of which increase the risk of heart disease<\/a>, heart attack<\/a> and stroke<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pan speculated that long naps might affect the body because they are associated with higher levels of inflammation.<\/p>\n But heart health experts said that just because you’re sleeping through the night doesn’t mean you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep — something for which this study doesn’t account.<\/p>\n Regarding how well you’re resting at night, napping “might be a sign that there’s something else going on,” said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist and director of the NYU Langone Center for Women’s Health<\/a>, in New York City.<\/p>\n “What kind of sleep were these individuals getting?” Goldberg said of the study participants. “Were they waking up at night? Did they have sleep apnea<\/a>?”<\/p>\n Dr. Matthew Tomey, a cardiologist with Mount Sinai Morningside in New York City, agreed that these folks might be suffering from poor sleep.<\/p>\n “Some people take naps as a matter of habit, or they take a power nap,” Tomey said. “For others, they’re taking potentially longer naps during the daytime because of too little or too poor quality sleep at night.”<\/p>\n People should take a nap when they feel like it, but if they regularly need naps that could be a sign of trouble, Tomey said.<\/p>\n “If they notice that they feel excessively sleepy during the daytime, needing multiple or long naps, that’s a wake-up call to pay attention to the quality and quantity of their nighttime sleep,” he added.<\/p>\n People who frequently nap should talk with their doctor about their sleep issues, since they might be suffering from sleep apnea<\/a> or some other issue that disrupts quality sleep, Tomey and Goldberg said.<\/p>\n Good sleep habits, according to the CDC, include:<\/p>\n \n
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