For A Healthy Heart, Study Says We Should Sleep 6 To 7 Hours Each Night

By now everyone should know how important getting a good night’s sleep is for your mental, cognitive, and physical health. New research took a look at how important sleep is for our heart health and found that six to seven hours of sleep a night reduces the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

Researchers from the Henry Ford Hospital say that people who manage less, or more, sleep are more prone to cardiovascular disease. “Sleep is often overlooked as something that may play a role in cardiovascular disease, and it may be among the most cost-effective ways to lower cardiovascular risk,” said Kartik Gupta, MD, resident, Division of Internal Medicine, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and lead author of the study.

“Participants who slept less than six hours or more than seven hours had a higher chance of death due to cardiac causes,” he said in a statement.

For the study, Gupta and his team included data from 14,079 participants in the 2005-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants were followed for a median duration of 7.5 years to determine if they died due to heart attack, heart failure or stroke. Those surveyed were 46 years old on average, half were women and 53% were non-white. Less than 10% of participants had a history of heart disease, heart failure or stroke.

They divided the groups based on answers to a question about duration of sleep and found that those in the middle range of 6 to 7 hours had the lowest ASCVD scores. The ASCVD risk score, which accounts for age, gender, race, blood pressure and cholesterol, is widely used to predict how likely someone is to have a heart attack or stroke or die from atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries, in the next 10 years. An ASCVD risk score less than 5% is considered low risk. Those who slept less than 6 hours had a score of 4.6%, while those who slept more than 7 hours were only slightly higher than the 3.3% for the 6 to 7 hour window.

The results are consistent with the idea that sleeping around seven hours a night is optimal.

Kartik and his team adds to mounting evidence that sleep, in addition to diet, smoking habits and exercise, is vital to cardiovascular health. It helps clear the body of toxic proteins that can trigger a host of conditions, including high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries.

“It’s important to talk about not only the amount of sleep but the depth and quality of sleep too. Just because you are lying in bed for seven hours doesn’t mean that you are getting good quality sleep,” Gupta said, also adding that more research is needed to validate these results.

Source: https://bit.ly/2SxNhtz