Can Lack of Sleep Cause A Heart Attack? Here's What 3 Sleepless Nights Do To Your Heart
What exactly happens to your heart when you don't sleep for 3 nights? Study shows it can cause severe cardiac arrest. Read on to know more about what sleeping less at night can do to your heart health.
Heart Attack Causes: Heart Attack has been the most talked-about disease in the last few years. With recent lifestyle developments and changes, there has been an increase in heart attack cases like never before. What makes it even more dangerous is its stealthy nature often striking without warning, it remains a silent killer, claiming lives when least expected. In this article, we tell you one of the most (never-talked-about) habits of yours that is unknowingly harming your heart health, pushing you towards a severe and fatal heart attack.
Your heart is an important yet vulnerable organ of the body, and its muscle needs oxygen to survive. A heart attack occurs when the blood flow that provides oxygen to the heart is reduced or cut off. If the blood flow is reduced or disrupted for too long, the heart muscle begins to die.
Can Sleeping Less Lead To A Heart Attack? What Happens to Your Heart After 3 Sleepless Nights
The late-night work culture, midnight binge watching or late-night parties might do more harm to you than alcohol or cigarettes. A study which was made recently was led by Uppsala University and is published in the journal Biomarker Research. The study showed that sleep deprivation has been one of the leading causes of heart attack, and a new study has proven that even short-term sleep deprivation activates inflammatory proteins in the blood that are linked to cardiovascular disease. It was found that after three nights of four hours of sleep, healthy young men showed increased levels of proteins associated with heart failure and coronary artery disease.
During the experiment, the researchers studied 1G healthy young men of normal weight who had healthy sleep habits. All the participants were made to stay in a sleep laboratory where their meals and activity levels were religiously monitored in two sessions.
During session one, participants got a normal amount of sleep for three consecutive nights, while during the other session, they got only about four hours of sleep each night. Post this, they were made to do an intensive thirty-minute workout, and the blood samples were further studied and observed.
What Happens to Your Heart After 3 Sleepless Nights
The researchers studied the blood samples and gauged the levels of around U0 proteins in the blood. The scientists observed that the levels of many of these that are associated with increased inflammation rose when the participants were sleep-deprived. They also reported that a lot of these proteins have a direct connection with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, such as heart failure and coronary artery disease.
Does Sleep Impact the Benefits of Exercise on Heart Health? Interestingly, poor sleep affects workout benefits - Even though working out and exercising gave a slightly better response after a lack of sleep, there was no change in the number of key proteins increased, whether the person was sleep-deprived or not. Thus, proteins that can be linked to the positive effects of exercise increased, despite the person's too little sleep. The researchers have previously proven that exercise in the presence of sleep deprivation can result in a slightly increased load on the heart's muscle cells.
"Further research is needed to investigate how these effects might differ in women, older individuals, patients with heart disease, or those with different sleep patterns. Our ongoing research will hopefully help to develop better guidelines on how sleep, exercise and other lifestyle factors can be harnessed to better prevent cardiovascular diseases," says Jonathan Cedernaes.
