Have you ever thought about the risks of dying of heart failure in your sleep? But those who have a healthy sleeping pattern has an overall low risk of dying by congestive heart failure while sleeping. According to a new study, this risk is nearly 42 percent in comparison to people who have an unhealthy sleeping cycle.
Typically, a healthy sleeping cycle means to wake up early in the morning after resting at least 7 to 8 hours per day. It also means the least episodes of sleeping irregularities such as insomnia, distress, snoring, etc. Moreover, sleeping during the daytime doesn’t add up to this idea of healthy sleeping habits.
Heart failure is an extremely common health issue that affects nearly 26 million people. There is scientific evidence that suggests that sleeping difficulties can increase the risk of dying of heart failure in your sleep.
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The new observational study shows that sleeping pattern has a huge impact on the risk of congestive heart failure in the UK.
This study evaluated data on 408,802 participants from UK Biobank. The average age range of these participants was 37 to 73 from 2006 till the end of this observational study.
During this 10 years period, 5,221 cases came forward with heart failure who were previously suffering from sleeping problems. This result shows that not just the sleep quality but the total sleeping patterns have a deep effect on heart health. it also includes simple sleep habits for example the time when a person wakes up or sleeps. Additionally, sleeping disorders such as insomnia also affect the risk of heart failure in later years.
The research team used questionnaires to collect information on sleeping behavior. According to the parameters, sleeping for less than 7 hours per day was short. While 7-8 hours of sleep weres normal, more than 9 hours per day were ‘long’.
Although many of them were having certain underlying factors they were set aside for understanding the risk of heart failure. These underlying factors include the use of medicines, diabetes, high blood pressure, and others.
Those participants who were sleeping normally were 42% low risk of dying by heart failure. This risk was also significantly low in people who don’t sleep during the day time, didn’t have insomnia, or were early risers.
However, there are certain limitations to this study. For example, it relied only on the self-information from the patients and didn’t cross-check or control it. The research team didn’t check the changes in sleeping habits during the follow-up period. And they didn’t correlate it with any other adjustments and risk factors which may affect heart health.
Still, this study is unique because of its novelty in this subject. Also, it analyzes a large sample that is fairly uncommon in studies like these. For the future, studying these results with other variables such as food intake can provide a better picture of heart risks and sleeping habits.
More Information
This new study is published in the journal ‘Circulation’, under the American Heart Association. Click here to read the complete study findings.
Reference- “Adherence to a Healthy Sleep Pattern and Incident Heart Failure: A Prospective Study of 408802 UK Biobank Participants”
