Have a good sleep and override your genetic heart risk!

Have a good sleep and override your genetic heart risk!

Good sleep pattern can reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease even in those who are genetically prone. A study with nearly 400 000 participants from the United Kingdom showed that those with a healthy sleep score can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke by about a third. Persons for the study were chosen from UK Biobank, a large-scale prospective study with over 500 000 participants aged 40-69 years when recruited in 2006–2010. The participants chosen were free of diseases of heart and blood vessels at the beginning of this study period. 

Touch screen questionnaires on sleep and other health related aspects were answered by the participants and physical measurements were taken. Blood samples were obtained for genotyping.

Sleep pattern was scored from 0-5 on a scale and those with a higher score were considered to have a healthier sleep pattern. Five factors were considered for the low risk group: early chronotype, 7-8 hours of sleep per day, never or rarely devoid of sleep, no snoring and no frequent excessive daytime sleepiness. Chronotype is your natural inclination to sleep at a certain time. A simple way to put it is an early bird versus a night owl. A night owl type of person typically has trouble falling asleep before 1 am! 

Chronotype preference was assessed in this study using the following question, ‘Do you consider yourself to be (i) definitely a “morning” person, (ii) more a “morning” than “evening” person, (iii) ‘more an “evening” than “morning” person’, or (iv) definitely an “evening” person’.

The benefits were noted in those with low, intermediate and high genetic risk. This large study concluded that healthy sleep pattern was associated with reduced risk of heart disease and stroke in all the genetic risk groups. About a tenth of the heart disease events in the study population could be attributed to poor sleep pattern. Those with poor sleep pattern and high genetic risk showed the highest risk of heart disease and stroke.

They also observed an association between heart and blood vessel disease and snoring. But that association became non-significant after adjustment for body mass index (BMI), high blood pressure and high blood sugar (diabetes).

Similar results were reported by earlier studies assessing sleep behaviour as well. Short or long sleepers with frequent symptoms of sleeplessness, as well as those with late chronotype, snoring and daytime sleepiness had the highest risk of heart and blood vessel disease.