A new study looking at the sleep patterns of 13,000 people has revealed a strong link between poor sleep, ischameic heart disease and stroke.
Poor sleep includes too long or short sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep and difficulty falling asleep. “Poor sleep is associated with cardiovascular diseases such as ischaemic heart disease and stroke but the kind of sleep disturbances that are most risky is not well documented,” said lead researcher Dr Nobuo Sasaki of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Casualty Council, Japan.
The research revealed that people who woke up during the night on a regular basis are 99 per cent more likely to have a heart attack and have a 37 per cent higher risk of stroke.
The research also found a 52 per cent higher risk of heart attack for those who took longer than half an hour to fall asleep and a 24 per cent higher risk for those who had less than six hours sleep.
Dr Sasaki concludes that “our results support the hypothesis that sleep deterioration may lead to cardiovascular disease.”
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