Kinkini Gupta
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Written By: Kinkini Gupta | Updated : March 3, 2023 8:54 PM IST
Study Finds Sleep Deprivation Can Up Your Risk Of Heart Attack
A recent study states that people suffering from insomnia are more prone to have a heart attack as compared to people who do not experience any sleep related problems. This recent study will be presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology on Monday. The experts who conducted this study stated that there are two categories of people who are at risk of a heart attack, firstly, people who suffer from insomnia and secondly people who experience erratic and disturbed sleep.
Sleep deprivation poses a serious risk of heart attack, say experts. The more sleep deprived a person is the more at risk he or she is. In order to maintain a healthy heart, we should not prioritize healthy diet and exercise but also adequate sleep.
This study was recently published in the journal, Clinical Cardiology. Experts of the university conducted an in depth analysis on the previous studies which involved millions of adults from across the world. There were 9 studies on this particular subject. Out of one million adults, almost 13 per cent of them were reportedly suffering from insomnia. Some where diagnosed by medical code while others reported that they were facing symptoms like difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep or waking early, or not being able to get back to sleep.
After the experts tracked their heart health history for over nine years, they found out that people who were sleeping for 5 hours or less were 1.38 times more likely to experience a heart attack than people who were sleeping for 6 hours or more. This was the findings of the study.
Experts state that, when people d not get enough sleep, there is a significant rise in the stress hormone cortisol in the body. This spike in turn, speeds up atherosclerosis, cholesterol, buildup of fats and other substances in the arteries. This is how it impacts our heart and makes it more prone to a cardiac arrest. People who experience insomnia in particular are at risk regardless of their age.
Additional risk factors compounded the risk of heart attack associated with poor sleep. "Not surprisingly, people with insomnia who also had high blood pressure, cholesterol [issues], or diabetes had an even higher risk of having a heart attack than those who didn't," says an expert. "People with diabetes who also have insomnia had a twofold likelihood of having a heart attack."
