Heart Disease Prevention - What Is the Link Between Heart Disease And Sleep?

Poor sleep can affect the heart, but heart disease can disturb sleep, too. Inflammation may probably be the one factor to link these together. Occasionally heart disease may cause poor sleep.  Find out more at:

https://www.howtopreventheartdisease.com/what-is-the-link-between-heart-disease-and-sleep.html

Heart Disease Prevention - Erratic Sleep Pattern May Cause Heart Disease!

Previous studies have associated sleep disorder including sleep deprivation, insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea to an elevated risk of high blood pressure, Type-2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease. But a recent research suggests that erratic sleep pattern may also raise the risk of heart disease. Find out more at:

https://www.howtopreventheartdisease.com/erratic-sleep-pattern-may-cause-heart-disease.html

Heart Disease Prevention - Why Heart Disease Risk Is Assessed By How One Sleeps?

According to a new study, up to one third or one fourth of the general population suffer from inadequate sleep: either insufficient duration of sleep or poor quality of sleep. Previous studies have linked inadequate sleep to an elevated risk of heart attack and stroke. Find out more at:

Heart Disease Prevention - Why Heart Disease Risk Is Assessed By How One Sleeps?

How Does Sleeping Pattern Affect Body Weight?

Previous studies have linked sleep deprivation to obesity as well as many medical disorders including diabetes and high blood pressure, which are also risk factors for heart disease and stroke. A recent study, however, claimed that sleep variations could as well be bad for the waistline.

It is not how long one sleeps that matters, it is about day-to-day variations in how long one sleeps. Researchers from Penn State University College of Medicine presented their paper during the EPI/Lifestyle 2015 Scientific Sessions organized by the American Heart Association (AHA) held between March 3 and 6 in San Diego. Teenagers who slept less or slept more than usual were found to eat more, and eat worse food.

Data of 342 teenagers from the Penn State Child Cohort follow-up study were used in the study. Participants, with an average age of 17, were asked to wear actigraph bracelets that tracked their cycles of activity and rest over 7 days so that how long they slept each night could be measured. They also answered a food frequency questionnaire to see how many calories and snacks, and how much protein, fat, and carbohydrates they regularly consumed in the previous year. The relationship between sleep duration, day-to-day sleep variations and food intake were then analyzed.

Results of their analysis, after adjusting for age, sex, race, and body mass index, indicated that teens slept on average just 7 hours a night. This was obviously less than 9 to 10 hours, as recommended by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Those who slept an hour less or an hour more than normal ate 201 more calories per day, ate about 6 grams more total fat and 32 grams more carbohydrates daily, 60 percent higher chance of nighttime snacking on school nights, and 100 higher chance of nighttime munching on weekends. The teens were found to sleep more on weekends than weekdays.

According to researchers, it is possible that getting less sleep might make a teenager more sedentary the next day so they become a couch potato, snacking in front of the television. Meanwhile, it is likely that shifts in sleep patterns result in a hormonal imbalance, causing these teens to eat more.

Sleep duration itself might matter more only if the teens were to be extremely sleep deprived, for instance, sleeping only 4 hours nightly. But it is more important to have a regular sleep pattern rather than sleeping longer one day and shorter on another. Hopefully, these findings might help better understand how obesity develops among young people.

How Does Sleep Deprivation Affect Weight And Health?

When one has insufficient sleep during the night, he or she might feel sleepiness the next morning that might cause accidents either on the road or at work. Lack of sleep might also impair judgment and make one forgetful.

During the EPI/Lifestyle 2015 Scientific Sessions organized by the American Heart Association (AHA) held between March 3 and 6 in San Diego, researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar reported that people who lose as little as 30 minutes of sleep on a weekday have changes in their metabolism that might make them gain weight and put them at risk of getting diabetes.

522 patients who had just been diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes were studied. They were taking part in a different study meant to determine whether exercise and diet would help and as part of the study, the volunteers also filled out a sleep diary.

Patients who had 30 minutes less than the recommended 8 hours a night were more likely to be obese and also had insulin resistance that could lead to diabetes. After a year, for every 30 minutes under 8 hours, the rate of obesity went up by 17 percent and the rate of insulin resistance, a key problem of diabetes, went up 39 percent.

In another study that was published online February 19, 2015 in the journal ‘Diabetologia’, researchers from the University of Chicago revealed the reasons why getting too little sleep might raise the risk of diabetes. According to them, lack of sleep could lead to increased levels of substances known as fatty acids in the blood. As long as fatty acid levels remained high, the ability of insulin to regulate blood sugar levels was impaired.

The study was small and involved only 19 healthy men who aged between 18 and 30. They participated in 2 sleep scenarios. In one, they got a full night's sleep (about 8 hours a night) for 4 nights. In the other, they only got slightly more than 4 hours of sleep a night. After a few consecutive nights of getting too little sleep, the men's blood levels of fatty acids increased and stayed high for about 5 hours in the early morning hours. These levels usually peak and then drop overnight.

Overweight is undesirable as it is one of the key risk factors for heart disease and stroke, and so is diabetes. Fortunately, as the researchers suggested, high rates of obesity and diabetes could be reduced by something as simple as getting more sleep.

Couples Sleeping Apart To Prevent Heart Disease and Other Disorders?

Sleep plays an important role in our health. If one could not have a good night sleep, many health hazards might just occur. Evidences have already shown that poor sleep was linked to depression, heart disease, lung disorder, traffic and industrial accidents, as well as divorce. Nevertheless, people do not seem to pay much attention to the quality of their sleep.

Of course, poor sleep can be due to many causes. For instance, family or work pressure, frequent passing of urine during the night, snoring from the partner sharing the same bed, and so on and so forth.

An interesting finding, revealed on September 10, 2009 at the British Science Festival, indicated that couples actually sleep better when they sleep separately. This seems to be opposite to what people generally feel: they tend to sleep better when a partner accompanies them.

In order to compare how well couples slept when they shared a bed versus slept separately, the researchers from the University of Surrey studied the sleep patterns of 40 couples. They found that when couples slept together in the same bed and if one of them moved in his or her sleep, there was a 50 percent chance that their partners on the same bed would badly be disturbed.

They also revealed that even with the evidence they gathered, couples are reluctant to sleep apart. There is only 8 percent of those couples who are in their 40s and 50s are sleeping in separate rooms. Perhaps, the thinking that couples do not sleep in the same bed only when they have problem in their relationship still firmly instilled in the mind of most people.

One sleep specialist, who sleeps separately with his wife, argues that people were never meant to share their beds.

Why?

According to his explanation, the concept of modern martial bed only started with the industrial revolution. This is because people were moving to overcrowded towns and cities where living space was scarce. He further pointed out that married couples sleeping apart were rather common before the Victoria era.

So what should the couples sharing the same bed do now?

The advice from the experts is that if couples sleeping together can sleep perfectly well, then they should stick to it, otherwise they should not be afraid to do something different.

Let Your Baby Sleep Enough To Avoid Overweight!

Childhood overweight or obesity has been a hot topic among people. This is because the extra weight accumulated in the body of these youngsters may greatly increase their risk of become victims of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, and even cancer in their life later.

Many causes, for example, over-eating and physical inactivity, can actually help a person gain weight or become obese. Nevertheless, a recent study revealed that babies with insufficient sleep could become overweight too!

Published in the “Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine”, the findings from the so-called “Project Viva” study indicated that infants who sleep an average of less than 12 hours per day have doubled their risk of being overweight by the age of 3, compared to babies who get at least 12 hours of sleep per day

The adverse effect of shorter sleep duration was especially obvious among children who also watched at least 2 hours of television per day.

Previous research has already linked short sleep duration to obesity in older children, adolescents and adults, but the current study examined the relationship between the hours of sleep during infancy and weight in childhood.

The mothers of 915 infants who were involved in the study were asked at 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years how many hours their child slept in a 24-hour period, including naps. At the age of 3, 9 percent of children were overweight, which was defined as having a body mass index (BMI) for age and sex in the 95th percentile or greater.

After removing the influence of other variables like demographics, maternal characteristics, breast-feeding duration, and birth weight, the researchers found that infants who slept an average of less than 12 hours per day were almost twice as likely to be overweight.

Moreover, a much higher association between sleep duration of less than 12 hours per day and television viewing of more than 2 hours per day was also noted. Such combination significantly raises the chances of becoming overweight by nearly 6 times.

Based on the findings, the researchers suggested that childhood overweight prevention should target not only on the reduction in television viewing but also on making sure adequate sleep duration.