A good night sleep helps keep heart disease away. According to a new study, sleeping an additional hour a night facilitates the control of coronary artery calcification, a significant risk factor for high disease.

 

The effect of one extra hour of sleep was reported in the December 24 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association and is said to be decisive, since it may equal the results of lowering systolic blood pressure to a standard 120 from an increased 136.

 

However, the accuracy of the data has been queried, as many people spend too little time with their eyes shut. Diane Lauderdale, the senior author and an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Chicago explained that although the finding was absorbing, it did not “by itself establish a causal relationship.” She added that some other factor might have a strong impact on the amount of sleep people get and on calcification as well.

 

In order to evaluate sleep duration correctly, researchers avoided to hinge on mere interviews with study participants who informed them about their sleep times. Instead, the scientists supervised 495 healthy men and women, aged from 35 to 47, for five years and measured their sleep durations with the help of electronic monitoring devices and by examining their arteries with CT scans.

 

Taken as a whole, the participants averaged 6.1 hours of sleep a night. Nevertheless, after controlling for age, cholesterol, blood pressure and other major factors, the subjects who averaged an additional hour of sleep every night reduced their risk of calcification by approximately one-third.