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By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter<\/p>\n
People who regularly get a good night’s sleep<\/a> may help protect themselves from heart failure<\/a>, a large, new study suggests.<\/p>\n Researchers found that of over 400,000 adults, those with the healthiest sleep<\/a> patterns were 42% less likely to develop heart<\/a> failure over 10 years, versus people with the least healthy habits.<\/p>\n Those “healthy” sleepers reported five things: Getting seven to eight hours of sleep<\/a> per night, no snoring<\/a>, rarely having trouble falling or staying asleep, no daytime grogginess, and being a “morning” person.<\/p>\n Still, the findings do not prove cause and effect, said senior researcher Dr. Lu Qi, a professor at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, in New Orleans.<\/p>\n However, he said, they do build on a body of research linking sleep<\/a> quality to heart<\/a> health.<\/p>\n Studies have found that people with insomnia<\/a> have higher risks of heart disease<\/a>. The same is true of people with sleep apnea<\/a> — a chronic disorder where breathing<\/a> pauses repeatedly throughout the night.<\/p>\n In fact, many of the unhealthy sleepers in the new study might have had sleep apnea<\/a>, said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Health, in New York City.<\/p>\n Chronic snoring<\/a> and daytime sleepiness are hallmarks of sleep apnea<\/a>, noted Goldberg, who is also a spokesperson for the American Heart Association. And if people are getting poor sleep because of breathing<\/a> problems, she added, they are unlikely to feel like an early bird.<\/p>\n It’s not that poor sleep directly causes heart failure<\/a>, according to Goldberg: Instead, it can feed the risk factors for heart failure, through effects on stress<\/a> hormones, blood pressure<\/a> and heart rate, for example.<\/p>\n “The bottom line is, sleep is another behavior that providers and patients should be taking about,” Goldberg said.<\/p>\n For the study, Qi’s team used data on over 400,000 U.K. adults who took part in a long-term health study. At the outset, when they were between the ages of 37 and 73, the participants answered questions about their sleep routines.<\/p>\n The researchers gave each person a “healthy sleep score” of 0 to 5, based on the number of healthy habits they reported.<\/p>\n Over roughly a decade, 5,221 study participants were diagnosed with heart failure — a chronic condition where the heart muscle can no longer pump efficiently enough to meet the body’s needs.<\/p>\n Overall, Qi’s team found, people who’d reported all five healthy sleep habits were 42% less likely to have heart failure than people who’d reported none or only one.<\/p>\n Of course, “good” sleepers might be generally health conscious, too. So, Qi’s team accounted for people’s exercise<\/a>, diet<\/a>, smoking<\/a> and drinking habits, as well as medical conditions like diabetes<\/a> and high blood pressure<\/a>. They also factored in people’s education levels and household income.<\/p>\n And healthy sleep remained linked to a lower risk of heart failure.<\/p>\n The findings were published online Nov. 16 in the journal Circulation<\/em>.<\/p>\n Dr. Roneil Malkani is an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago.<\/p>\n He agreed that the findings might reflect the effects of undiagnosed sleep apnea<\/a>. There’s also a possibility that early heart problems caused some sleep-related symptoms.<\/p>\n “Daytime sleepiness could be a symptom of worsening heart health,” Malkani said.<\/p>\n Of the five sleep behaviors, he noted, lack of daytime sleepiness was linked to the biggest reduction in heart failure risk.<\/p>\n That said, Malkani pointed to past research showing similar patterns: Poor sleep quality — whether defined as sleep apnea, excessive sleep or too little sleep — has been tied to greater health risks and shorter life span.<\/p>\n
He said the “novelty” of this study is that it used a simple, straightforward way to gauge healthy sleep.<\/p>\n According to Qi, its message is similarly straightforward. “Getting seven to eight hours of sleep is better than five or six,” he said.<\/p>\n And if people have problems with insomnia<\/a>, snoring<\/a> or daytime drowsiness, Qi added, they should talk to their doctor.<\/p>\n More information<\/strong><\/p>\n The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has more on healthy sleep.<\/a><\/p>\n SOURCES: Lu Qi, MD, PhD, professor, epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans; Nieca Goldberg, MD, cardiologist, medical director, Joan Tisch Center for Women’s Health<\/a>, NYU Langone Health, New York City; Roneil Malkani, MD, assistant professor, neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago; Circulation<\/em>, Nov. 16, 2020, online<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n
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\n Heart Disease: Symptoms, Signs, and Causes<\/span>
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