Because people were asked to self-report how long and how well they sleep, there’s a chance that the authors underestimated the impact of sleep on heart health, since people frequently downplay how poorly they’re actually sleeping.
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Dr. Chan-Won Kim of Kangbuk Samsung Hospital of Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea said,”Many people, up to one-third or one fourth of the general population, suffer from inadequate sleep – either insufficient duration of sleep or poor quality of sleep”.
“Since we studied apparently healthy young and middle-age men and women without major diseases, it is unlikely that other health problems can explain the association between extreme sleep duration and early markers of heart disease”, said Dr. Kim.
The researchers also categorized the participants among short sleepers and long sleepers. During the first stage of the trial, the participants were questioned about their sleep habits and then they were tested to check if there were any coronary artery lesions, by assessing the presence of calcium on the walls of the coronary arteries.
Short sleepers had 50 percent more calcium in their coronary arteries than those who slept for seven hours per night, according to the results in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Both measures are known to predict later coronary disease and related heart conditions, in particular because calcium is deposited in the arteries as they become clogged with plaque.
A new research from South Korea has found that having too much or too little sleep may lead to hardening of arteries, which could be an early indication of heart disease. “Overall, we saw the lowest levels of vascular disease in adults sleeping seven hours a day and reporting good sleep quality”, said study co-author Yoosoo Chang, who is an associate professor in the Center for Cohort Studies at Kangbuk Samsun Hospital. In a study, they said those who struggle with inadequate or poor sleep may be at higher risk for early signs of heart diseases compared with those who get enough and good quality slumber. This is an easily identifiable early sign of disease.
“It is still not clear if inadequate sleep is the cause or the outcome of ill health”, he says, but noted that good sleep habits, including avoiding use of electronic media at bedtime, should be part of a healthy lifestyle.
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Sleep quality and duration thus appear to be important factors in maintaining cardiovascular health.
