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 Researchers followed 487,200 people in China for about a decade
starting when they were 51 years old on average. None of them had a
history of heart disease or stroke at the start of the study.
After almost a decade of follow-up, there were 130,032 cases of
stroke, heart attack and other similar diseases.
Overall, people who had three insomnia symptoms - trouble falling or
staying asleep, waking too early in the morning, and trouble staying
focused during the day due to poor sleep - were 18% more likely to
have events like a heart attack or stroke than people without any of
these sleep issues, the researchers reported in Neurology
"These results suggest that if we can target people who are having
trouble sleeping with behavioral therapies, it's possible that we
could reduce the number of cases of stroke, heart attack and other
diseases later down the line," Dr. Liming Li, senior author of the
study and a researcher at Peking University in Beijing, said in a
statement.
About 11% of the people had difficulty falling asleep or staying
asleep; 10% reported waking up too early; and 2% had trouble staying
focused during the day due to poor sleep, the study found. The
researchers didn't determine if the people met the full definition
of insomnia.
Compared with participants without specific insomnia symptoms, those
who did have sleep problems were older, more likely to be female,
not married, and from rural areas. People with insomnia symptoms
also less education, lower income, and were more likely to have a
history of diabetes or mood disorders like anxiety or depression.
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People who had trouble falling asleep or staying asleep were 9% more
likely to have events like a heart attack or stroke than people who
did not have this trouble.
And, people who woke up too early in the morning were 7% more likely
to have these events than individuals without this issue.
When people had trouble staying focused during the day due to poor
sleep, they were 13% more likely to experience events like a heart
attack or stroke.
The increased risk of heart attack and stroke persisted even after
researchers accounted for other factors that could independently
affect the risk of stroke or heart disease like alcohol use,
smoking, and level of physical activity.
"The link between insomnia symptoms and these diseases was even
stronger in younger adults and people who did not have high blood
pressure at the start of the study, so future research should look
especially at early detection and interventions aimed at these
groups," Li said.
The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how insomnia symptoms might cause events like a heart attack or
stroke. Another limitation is that researchers relied on
participants to report their own sleep symptoms and any heart
attacks or strokes they had.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2qKgaoi Neurology, online November 6, 2019.
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