Poor Sleep Can Harm Your Heart Health, Too

How many hours of sleep do you put in? I always try for a minimum of 7 hours and since the alarm goes off at 6am I need to be in bed by 11pm.This doesn’t bother me at all for when  you get up at 6 you’ll be quite tired 17 hours later.

Anyway have a look at this interesting story about how a lack of sleep can have a serious effect on your heart health too!

Poor Sleep Can Harm Your Heart Health, Too

Bad news for those who don’t catch enough Z’s on a nightly basis: Poor sleep increases the likelihood that you’ll suffer a heart attack or stroke.

Valery Gafarov, a professor of cardiology at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, shared the findings of his recent study at a medical conference on Monday. The results, he said, highlight how poor sleep should be considered a risk factor for cardiovascular disease in addition to smoking, inactivity and an unhealthy diet.

The Background
Sleep deprivation currently affects more than one third of both men and women in the United States, contributing to health problems like obesity, diabetes, memory loss and even cancer. And now we have further evidence that heart health is also jeopardized by failing to rest well each day.

The Setup
Gafarov’s research, which was a part of the World Health Organization program Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease, used a representative sample of 657 men between the ages of 25 and 64 to investigate the relationship between poor sleep and their long-term risk of stroke or heart attack. The study began in 1994, using the Jenkins Sleep Scale to assess participants’ sleep quality. The ratings “very bad,” “bad,” and “poor” were qualifiers for sleep disorders. Gafarov then monitored each subject over the next 14 years, recording any cases of myocardial infarction during that time.

“Until now,” he said at the conference, “there has not been a population based cohort study examining the impact of sleep disorders on the development of a heart attack or stroke.”

Here’s the link to the original article:https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/19/poor-sleep-affects-heart-health_n_7598126.html