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If you’re a bad sleeper, there’s basically no good news.
Not does a bad sleep routine mean you’re probably more stressed and less likely to lose weight, but now it may also mean that you’re ruining your heart health.
This new study, done on 50,000 participants, studied the connection between sleep habits and coronary artery calcification and arterial stiffness.
These things are both used to predict heart conditions.
Those who only slept five hours per night had about 50 percent more calcium in their arteries than people who slept 7 hours.
But it’s not just bad news for people who sleep too little. People who slept for nine hours or more per night reported 70 percent more calcium than those who slept seven hours.
That isn’t great news.
The pattern is the same when it comes to arterial stiffness. Poor sleep quality correlated with higher artery stiffness levels.
And that’s not all. There’s a gender specificity, too. The CAC increases were only seen in women, and the arterial stiffness increases were mostly seen in men.
Even further, the authors of the study say that they may even have underestimated the impact. The study required participants to self-report, and people often downplay their own sleeping problems.
Seeing as there’s already a very strong correlation between sleep and arterial health, the fact that it’s probably worse isn’t exactly good news.
The takeaway: “Adults with poor sleep quality have stiffer arteries than those who sleep seven hours a day or had good sleep quality. Overall, we saw the lowest levels of vascular disease in adults sleeping seven hours a day in and reporting good sleep quality,” said the study.
