This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Sleep duration, quality contribute to CVD risk
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The risk for cardiovascular disease may be increased with shorter sleep duration and poorer sleep quality in middle-aged women, according to findings presented at the Annual Meeting of the North American Menopause Society.
“We found that shorter objective sleep time was associated with significantly higher odds of carotid plaque,” Rebecca C. Thurston, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Women’s Biobehavioral Health Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a press release. “In addition, poorer subjective sleep quality was associated with significantly higher intima-media thickness.”
Thurston and colleagues evaluated 256 women aged 40 to 60 years to determine whether sleep duration and quality are tied to elevated carotid atherosclerosis.
Three days of wrist actigraphy, 24 hours of ambulatory sternal skin conductance hot flash monitoring, questionnaires and a blood draw were all completed by participants.
Significantly higher odds of carotid plaque were related to short objective sleep duration (for each fewer hour: plaque score 2, OR = 1.58, 95% CI, 1.11-2.27; plaque score = 1, OR = 0.95; 95% CI, 0.68-1.32; relative to no plaque, multivariable). There were nonlinear relationships between intima-media thickness and objective sleep duration; the highest intima-media thickness was observed among participants who slept 5 to 6 hours compared with participants who slept 6 to 7 hours (P = .02); longer sleep duration (> 7 hours) was not protective.
Participants with poor sleep quality also were likely to have greater intima-media thickness (P = .03) and more plaque (plaque score 2, OR = 1.23, 95% CI, 1.09-1.4; plaque score = 1, OR = 1.06; 95% CI, 0.93-1.21; relative to no plaque, multivariable).
“Short or poor sleep was associated with markers of elevated CV risk,” Thurston told Endocrine Today. “Sleep may not only be a quality-of-life issue, but also a physical health issue. We need to understand whether improving women’s sleep at midlife improves their CV health.” – by Amber Cox
Reference:
Thurston RC, et al. S-16. Presented at: Annual Meeting of the North American Menopause Society; Oct. 5-8, 2016; Orlando, Fla.
Disclosure: The study was funded by grants from the NIH and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.