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Doctors specializing in sleep medicine have found a link to sleep
disorders and heart disease in the past, but they didn’t know if losing
sleep was causing heart attacks or purely coincidence. But study
results, presented at EuroHeartCare, the annual meeting of the European
Society of Cardiology, are said to be the first to examine how sleep
disorders impact a person's risk for heart disease or stroke.
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"Sleep is not a trivial issue,” professor Valery Gafarov said during the
presentation, according to a statement. “In our study, it was associated
with double the risk of a heart attack and up to four times the risk of
stroke. Poor sleep should be considered a modifiable risk factor for
cardiovascular disease along with smoking, lack of exercise, and poor
diet. Guidelines should add sleep as a risk factor to recommendations
for preventing cardiovascular disease."
The study was part of the World Health Organization’s program "MONICA"
(Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular
Disease), which was designed to study the human heart on an
international level. In 1994, researchers began studying the sleep
quality of 657 Russian men between the ages of 25 and 64. None had a
history of heart attack, stroke, or diabetes.
After following them for 14 years, nearly two-thirds of the participants
who had a heart attack also had a sleep disorder. The highest rates were
found in men with sleep disorders who were either widowed, divorced, had
low levels of education, or had medium to heavy manual labor jobs.
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Men with sleep disorders had up to a 2.6 times higher risk of myocardial
infarction, which is a heart attack cause by the death of the heart
muscle, and a 1.5 to 4 times higher risk of stroke. Heart disease kills
50 percent of the total population, and nearly 80 percent of deaths from
heart disease are caused specifically from heart attacks and stroke,
according to the research.
“It means that today we are talking about an epidemic of cardiovascular
disease,” Gafarov said. “It is therefore necessary to engage in
intensive prevention of risk factors leading to the development of
cardiovascular diseases.”
Between 50 and 70 million Americans are affected by chronic sleep
disorders. Obstructive sleep apnea, one of the most infamous of sleeping
disorders, occurs in 50 percent of obese individuals, according to the
Academy of Sleep Medicine. An apnea occurs when there's a 90 percent
reduction in airflow. It may occur in as frequently as 50 to 100 times
per hour, as a cycle ensues characterized by constant reawakening
throughout the night. Cutting off the airway can put a severe strain on
a person’s heart throughout the night, which in turns often leads to
heart disease.
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"For most people, good quality sleep is seven to eight hours of rest
each night. People who are not sleeping well should speak to their
doctor," Gafarov said. "Our previous research showed that sleeping
disorders are very closely connected with depression, anxiety, and
hostility, so speaking with a psychologist may also help."
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