Poor Sleep Increases Risk of Heart Disease

Poor sleep health may triple the risk of heart disease in middle-aged adults, according to the results of a recent study.

To better understand the relationship between heart disease and subjective and objective measures of sleep, the researchers analyzed data on 6820 adults from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study.

All participants disclosed family history of heart disease and self-reported sleep characteristics through a sleep health composite. The Regularity Satisfaction Alertness Timing Efficiency and Duration (Ru-SATED) model was used to determine which sleep dimensions were measured. A subset of 663 participants also provided actigraphy sleep data in addition to their self-reported sleep composites.

The results indicated that the risk of heart disease was increased by 54% per unit increase of poor sleep health for the self-reported sleep health composite and increased by 141% per unit increase of poor sleep health for the actigraphy/self-reported sleep health composite. The risk of heart disease was also associated with individual sleep dimensions of satisfaction, alertness, and efficiency from the self-report composite and regularity, satisfaction, and timing from the actigraphy/self-report composite.

The sleep health composite’s effect sizes were larger than the individual dimensions. While there was no moderation of sleep health composites and heart disease by sex, there were moderations by race.

“The current study shows the importance of considering ‘co-existing sleep health problems’ within an individual to assess the risk of heart disease,” the researchers concluded. “The findings highlight the importance and utility of assessing multidimensional sleep health in predicting the risk of heart disease and potentially other health outcomes.”

—Leigh Precopio

Reference:

Lee S, Mu CX, Wallace ML, et al. Sleep health composites are associated with the risk of heart disease across sex and race. Sci Rep. Published online February 7, 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05203-0