Lack of sleep is something common nowadays. Whether it’s
just a movie on our laptop or catching up on things for the next day, insomnia
or a party, we lose good hours of sleep, increasing our risks for various
health problems. Research has shown that sleep deprivation leads to a serious
of conditions such as obesity, coronary artery disease, diabetes, poor memory,
high blood pressure, depression, cigarette smoking and excessive drinking and
even mortality.
The new study makes no exception and warns us that lack of
sleep associated with hypertension increase by 33 percent the rate of
cardiovascular incidents such as strokes and heart attacks. The study is
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Archives of
Internal Medicine.
Researchers led by Dr. Kazuo Eguchi of Jichi Medical
University in Japan analyzed data from 1,255 men and women with high blood pressure
who were between 33 and 97 years old; the average age was 70. The researchers
tracked each participant’s blood pressure changes over a 24-hour period, sleep
duration, and cardiovascular disease events such as stroke, heart attack and
sudden cardiac death. The participants were followed over an average of 50
months.
They recorded 99 incidents of cardiovascular disease during
the follow-up period. The rate among those who slept less than 7.5 hours was
2.4 per 100 person-years. Those who got more sleep had an incident rate of 1.8
per 100 person-years. The risk was greater among participants who had shown no
drop in their overnight blood pressure, versus those who had. However, the
combination short sleep plus non-dipping blood pressure conferred the highest
risk – a more than four-fold greater risk of heart attack, stroke or cardiac death.
“A good sleep of adequate duration
is essential because sleep fragmentation and sleep deprivation, commonly seen
in contemporary society, are associated with multiple health disorders,
including cardiovascular diseases (CVD),” Dr. Eguchi said.
According to the National Sleep
Foundation, a Washington-based organization that studies sleep and sleep
disorders, adults should sleep at least seven hours a night, children ages 5 to
12 should get nine to eleven hours, while adolescents need 8 1/2 to 9 1/2
hours.
A survey by the National Center
for Health Statistics, part of the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention released in May this year found that an estimated 50 to 70 million
people suffer from constant sleep loss or sleep disorders. The survey also
found that 33 percent of those who slept less than six hours were obese, as
were 26 percent of those who got nine hours or more. Only 22 percent of those
sleeping the recommended amount of time were obese. Speaking of smoking
and sleep deprivation, the survey found that among adults 18 and older who slept
7 to 8 hours a night, only 18 percent were current cigarette smokers, compared
to over 30 percent of adults who slept less than six hours a night.
Keeping in mind all the evidence above, how many hours did
you sleep last night?
