Less Sleep Means More Heart Risk

Parallel studies by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Warwick Medical School in Coventry have found that less than six hours of sleep at night can double the chances of a person’s developing a condition related to heart disease.

Insufficient sleep can lead to hormonal imbalance which in turn can cause changes in appetite and the feeling of fullness following a meal. It can also increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, a combination of symptoms that include high cholesterol, increased blood pressure, a large waist circumference and uncontrolled blood sugar levels. Metabolic syndrome is considered to be a precursor to heart disease, but it can be treated by changing to a healthier lifestyle and medications.

In the first study conducted by Dr. Matrica Hall and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, sleep patterns of 1,214 adults between the ages of 30 and 54 years were looked at. 29 percent of people who slept less than six hours a night were found to have all symptoms of metabolic syndrome. In comparison, 24 percent of those who slept between six and seven hours had these symptoms, while people who got seven to eight hours of sleep a night had the lowest risk.

“This relationship was strongest in the group of men and women who slept less than six hours per night. On average, the odds of having the metabolic syndrome were nearly doubled in men and women who slept less than six hours, compared to those who slept between seven and eight hours per night,” said Dr Hall.

The other study carried out by Dr. Francesco Cappuccio and colleagues at Warwick Medical School provides the most conclusive evidence linking lack of sleep to obesity till date. The researchers analysed the findings of 39 studies that looked at the link between obesity and lack of sleep in a total of 30,000 children and 600,000 adults.

While seven out of the 11 studies on children showed a consistent link between insufficient sleep and obesity, all the studies on adults arrived at this same result. Dr. Cappuccio said, “There is a striking consistent overall association, in that both obese children and adults had a significantly increased risk of being short sleepers compared to normal weight individuals.”

“This study is important as it confirms that this association is strong and might be of public health relevance. However, it also raises the unanswered question yet of whether this is a cause-effect association,” he said.

Published in the journal Sleep, the studies recommend that children in school-age should get between 10-11 hours of sleep a night, adolescents should get nine hours while adults should get at least eight hours.

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