Who doesn’t appreciate a good night’s sleep? Its benefits are well known and appreciated by us all. For those suffering from or looking to avoid heart disease, a good night’s sleep is vital for disease prevention, management and even reversal. Today’s excerpt explains more.
Sleeping less than six hours a night may make you more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure.
A new study puts numbers on that risk. The study, based on more than 3,000 people older than 45, shows that people who sleep less than six hours per night are about twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack as people who get six to eight hours of sleep. And they are about 70% more likely to have congestive heart failure.
“The optimal sleep time appears to be six to eight hours,” says Rohit R. Arora, MD, chairman of cardiology at Chicago Medical School.
The new study, presented in Chicago at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting, isn’t the first study to link sleep and heart health. But it’s one of the largest surveys to do that, Arora says.
That means a lot of Americans could be at greater risk for heart trouble because of their sleep habits. Nearly 30% of U.S. adults report sleeping no more than six hours per night, according to a national health survey.
Source: “Too Little Sleep Bad for Heart”. By Charlene Laino. http://www.webmd.com