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By Ben HirschlerMon Sep 24, 9:39 AM ET
People who do not get enough sleep are more than twice as likely to die of
heart disease, according to a large British study released on Monday.
Although the reasons are unclear, researchers said lack of sleep appeared to be
linked to increased blood pressure, which is known to raise the risk of heart
attacks and stroke.
A 17-year analysis of 10,000 government workers showed those who cut their
sleeping from seven hours a night to five or less faced a 1.7-fold increased
risk in mortality from all causes and more than double the risk of
cardiovascular death.
The findings highlight a danger in busy modern lifestyles, Francesco Cappuccio,
professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Warwick's medical
school, told the annual conference of the British Sleep Society in Cambridge.
"A third of the population of the UK and over 40 percent in the U.S. regularly
sleep less than five hours a night, so it is not a trivial problem," he said in
a telephone interview.
"The current pressures in society to cut out sleep, in order to squeeze in
more, may not be a good idea -- particularly if you go below five hours."
Previous research has highlighted the potential health risks of shift work and
disrupted sleep. But the study by Cappuccio and colleagues, which was supported
by British government and U.S. funding, is the first to link duration of sleep
and mortality rates.
The study looked at sleep patterns of participants aged 35-55 years at two
points in their lives -- 1985-88 and 1992-93 -- and then tracked their
mortality rates until 2004.
The results were adjusted to take account of other possible risk factors such
as initial age, sex, smoking and alcohol consumption, body mass index, blood
pressure and cholesterol.
The correlation with cardiovascular risk in those who slept less in the 1990s
than in the 1980s was clear but, curiously, there was also a higher mortality
rate in people who increased their sleeping to more than nine hours.
In this case, however, there was no cardiovascular link and Cappuccio said it
was possible that longer sleeping could be related to other health problems
such as depression or cancer-related fatigue.
"In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping
around seven hours per night is optimal for health," he said.