Lack of Sleep Increases Stroke Risk - Study

Thursday 10th February 2011

Research carried out by Warwick Medical School and the University of Naples in Italy found that sleep deprivation increases the chances of developing life threatening heart conditions.

Evidence was examined from fifteen studies that covered a time scale between seven and twenty-five years, consisting of data from a large base of forty-seven thousand people, across eight countries that included the UK, US, Japan and Sweden.

Examining medical literature, while concentrating on the relationship between sleep, coronary heart disease and stokes and the risk of death from these diseases, identified that people who regularly sleep less than six hours a night, the recommended being between seven and eight hours a night, have a forty eight per cent greater chance of developing heart disease, which is significant risk.

Professor Francesco Cappuccio commented; "The trend for late night and early mornings is actually a ticking time bomb for our health so you need to act now to reduce your risk of developing these life-threatening conditions."

Hectic lifestyles that revolve around long working days, squeezing in a monumental amount of activity into a fixed amount of time, inevitably results in sleeping time that is eaten in to, as long commutes and family commitments demand extra time, so that everything, including bed time is pushed forward at least an hour.

It seems the more stress we put our bodies under by lengthening wakefulness and resisting the restorative state of sleep, the greater our risk of developing heart disease that effectively shortens our lives. It seems that we therefore have to break the cycle and dedicate more time to rest in order to maintain health. It seems that sleep is a biological necessity that can not be sacrificed in order to fit in a day of activities.

The study was published in the European Heart Journal.

 

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