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Sleep-deprived women risk heart disease
1 Jul 2009Women who do not sleep well are at higher risk of suffering heart disease and heart related problems than men, a study revealed today.
Eight hours is the recommended length of time people should spend asleep, and women who get less than that have a higher chance of coronary problems than men with the same sleeping patterns.
Research by the University of Warwick and University College London (UCL) found levels of inflammatory markers - indicators of coronary heart disease - vary significantly with sleep duration in women, but not men.
Michelle Miller, lead author of the report, said: "Our study may provide some insight into a potential mechanism for the observation in previous studies which indicates an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease in individuals who have less than five hours sleep per night and increased risk of non-cardiovascular death in long sleepers."
Published in the American journal Sleep, researchers found levels of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) were much lower in women who reported sleeping eight hours compared to those who slept for seven hours.
Another marker, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), which predicts future cardiovascular morbidity, were significantly higher in women who reported sleeping for five hours or less.
Associate professor of biochemical medicine at Warwick Medical School, Dr Miller, added: "These findings add to the growing body of evidence which suggests that there is a non-linear relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and duration of sleep.
"Furthermore, they support the idea that short sleep is associated with an increase in cardiovascular risk and that the association between sleep duration and cardiovascular risk factors is markedly different in men and women.
"Further prospective studies are required to ascertain causality but the results also are consistent with the idea that sleeping seven or eight hours per night appears to be optimal for health."
The report was based on findings from the first large-scale study to investigate the associations between measures of inflammation and sleep duration in both men and women, which involved more than 4,600 white participants, of which 73% were men.
Participants between the ages of 35 and 55 were recruited between 1985 and 1988 from 20 London-based civil service departments and data for this study is from the follow-up in 1991 to 1993.
Sleep duration was determined by subjective questionnaires, and general health was assessed during a screening examination.
