Sleep seven hours a night to cut stroke risk

Tuesday, 8 February 2011 12:44 PM

The trend for late nights and early mornings is a ticking time bomb for our health, with lack of sleep linked to heart disease, strokes and heart attacks, according to new research.

A team at the University of Warwick followed up evidence from more than 470,000 case studies from eight countries, including the UK Japan and Sweden.

They found that people who sleep less than six hours per night and have disturbed sleep stand a 48% greater chance of developing or dying from heart disease and a 15% greater chance of developing or dying of a stroke.

Chronic short sleep produces hormones and chemicals in the body which increase the risk of developing heart disease and strokes, and other conditions like high blood pressure and cholesterol, diabetes and obesity.

Professor Francesco Cappuccio, from the University of Warwick Medical School, said: “There is an expectation in today’s society to fit more into our lives.

“But in doing so, we are significantly increasing the risk of suffering a stroke or developing cardiovascular disease resulting in, for example, heart attacks.”

 

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