- A new meta-analysis of 21 studies involving more than 2 million people examines how insomnia affects the risk of heart disease.
- Researchers compared data from healthy people without insomnia and people with insomnia.
- The results showed that people with insomnia were at increased risk of cardiovascular events such as myocardial infarction and cardiovascular death.
- Furthermore, all-cause mortality associated with insomnia showed a 14% higher risk than healthy individuals.
Most people have suffered from sleep problems at some point, whether due to stress or a medical condition.
If you regularly have trouble falling asleep or getting enough rest at night, this is called insomnia.
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Some past studies have found that insomnia increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), while others have shown no association.
These contradictory findings prompted a new meta-analysis to try to determine whether and to what extent insomnia affects the heart.
This research
Although several studies have analyzed a possible link between insomnia and heart disease, the authors of this study noted that the research is contradictory.
Researchers said that while older studies tended to show a link between insomnia and heart disease, the new study “showed no significant association.”
They also point out that there is a “lack of data incorporating recent clinical studies evaluating these outcomes.”
With this in mind, they scoured medical databases and compiled a comprehensive meta-analysis to see if data from the past 20 years showed an association between insomnia and cardiovascular disease. .
Researchers used data from 21 studies involving approximately 389,000 people with insomnia and more than 2 million healthy people.
The studies that followed these people followed them for a range of 3 to 20 years and required participants to be at least 18 years old.
Other criteria for inclusion are:
- Cardiovascular mortality outcomes
- myocardial infarction incident
- cardiovascular disease incidents
- All-cause mortality associated with insomnia
The researchers did not include studies involving minors, animals, or without controls.
The average age of study participants was 59.4 years in the insomnia group and 58.6 years in the healthy group.
After analyzing the data and comparing healthy people and people with insomnia, researchers found a correlation between insomnia and many health problems.
The authors said people with insomnia were at a much higher risk of cardiovascular death. People with insomnia had a 53% increased risk of death related to heart disease compared to healthy people.
Insomnia was also associated with a significantly increased risk of heart attack. People with insomnia had a 48% higher risk of heart attack than healthy people.
Another important finding was that people with insomnia were 31% more likely to develop any type of cardiovascular disease.
Finally, the authors found that people with insomnia had a 14% higher all-cause mortality rate compared to healthy people.
Looking at available data from studies that followed participants for 10 to 20 years, researchers found that people with insomnia had a much higher mortality rate from any cause. This suggests that insomnia is not only a problem in the short term, but can also affect people in the future.
Researchers speculated why insomnia affects the cardiovascular system, saying:
“We’re excited to announce that this is the first time we’ve had patients with heart disease,” said Dr. Chen-Han Chen, an interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California. Today’s medical news About studying. Dr. Chen explained how insomnia can affect heart health.
“Insomnia may negatively impact heart health through a combination of mechanisms, including increased sympathetic nervous system activity, dysregulated autonomic nervous system activity, and increased systemic inflammation,” Dr. Chen commented. .
“Insomnia is often accompanied by obstructive sleep apnea, a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Chen continued. “Finally, insomnia may promote high blood pressure, another risk factor for cardiovascular disease.”
Although Dr. Chen thought the study was overall useful, he noted that the study had limitations.
“There are limitations due to significant heterogeneity in the definition of insomnia across studies as well as clinical and methodological variation between studies. Additionally, the observational studies that formed the basis of the meta-analysis are There is an inherent limitation in that we cannot show a causal relationship, i.e. whether insomnia causes cardiovascular disease or whether underlying cardiovascular disease causes further insomnia.”
— Dr. Chen-Han Chen, Cardiologist
Dr. Nicole Weinberg, a board-certified cardiologist at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, also shared her thoughts on the study with: MNT.
“Often people have undiagnosed sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, which can be very dangerous to the heart,” Dr. Weinberg said.
“Illnesses such as obstructive sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure, weight gain, and pulmonary hypertension,” Dr. Weinberg noted. “As these relate to cardiovascular health, they can lead to increased morbidity and mortality.”
When asked about the study’s strengths or weaknesses, Dr. Weinberg emphasized the points the authors mentioned.
“This study acknowledges that it would be interesting to control for variables such as obstructive sleep apnea so that we can determine whether there are other aspects of insomnia that are detrimental to cardiovascular disease.” Dr. Weinberg said.
Dr. Chen offered some recommendations for people looking to improve their sleep quality.
“Sufferers of insomnia should take steps to maintain a healthy lifestyle, such as keeping their bedroom cool, dark, and quiet, avoiding caffeine and alcohol, going to bed at about the same time each day, exercising regularly during the day, and avoiding afternoon naps. You can try to develop good sleep habits.”
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“Workup for sleep disorders is becoming more common and covered by insurance,” Dr. Weinberg said.
As a result, doctors point out that medical professionals are in a better position to identify sleep disorders.
“The hope is that we can treat it early and avoid the negative effects associated with these diseases,” Dr. Weinberg said.
