One study found that getting less than five hours of sleep a night increased the risk of developing peripheral artery disease (PAD) by 74 percent, compared with getting seven to eight hours of sleep. More than 200 million people globally have PAD, where vessels in the legs become blocked, restricting blood flow and increasing the risk of stroke and heart attack, the researchers said.
“Our study suggests that getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night is a good habit to reduce the risk of PAD,” said study author Shuai Yuan of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. “Night-time sleepiness and daytime naps have previously been linked to an increased risk of coronary artery disease, which is caused by clogging of the arteries like PAD,” Yuan said in a statement.
Sleep problems are one of the top-ranking complaints in PAD patients, the researchers said. There is limited data on the impact of sleep habits on PAD and vice versa, and the study aims to fill that gap. The research, published in the European Heart Journal Open, included more than 650,000 participants and was conducted in two parts.
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First, the researchers analyzed the associations of sleep duration and daytime napping with the risk of PAD. In the second part, they used the genetic data to conduct tests to investigate the reason behind these associations.
Yuan said, “Observational analyzes are limited by reverse causality — which means that if an association between sleep habits and PAD is found, we cannot be certain whether sleep habits cause PAD or whether PAD occurs.” Sleep habits happen.” Taken together, the strongest evidence was for short sleep, where the association with PAD went both ways.
The researchers said that in an observational analysis of 53,416 adults, sleeping less than five hours a night nearly doubled the risk of PAD compared with seven to eight hours. This finding was supported by further analyzes in 156,582 and 452,028 individuals. In causal studies, short sleep was associated with an increased risk of PAD and, in addition, short sleep was associated with an increased likelihood of PAD.
“The results suggest that short nighttime sleep may increase the likelihood of developing PAD and that having PAD increases the risk of getting insufficient sleep,” Yuan said. Regarding longer sleep, in an observational analysis of 53,416 adults, eight hours or more of sleep per night was associated with a 24 percent higher risk of PAD compared with seven to eight hours.
This finding was supported by analyzes in two larger populations of 156,582 and 452,028 individuals. However, the researchers noted that no causal relationship was found between long sleep and PAD.
“More studies are needed on the relationship between long night’s sleep, daytime naps, and PAD,” Yuan said.