Going to bed an hour later increases the risk of contracting a deadly disease
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Going to bed later than usual to finish an episode or regularly read a little more of a book can be deadly, according to a new study.
Going to bed just an hour later, you risk contracting a “silent killer disease.”
Heart and other cardiovascular diseases are one of the biggest causes of death in the UK, accounting for around a quarter of all deaths.
There are a number of factors that can increase the risk of heart problems, including diet, exercise frequency and genetics.
However, new research has shown that your sleep habits can also affect your heart health.
“The study found that not getting enough sleep at night can harm the heart. Scientists have concluded that even mild sleep deprivation can be dangerous,” says the cardiologist.
The 12-week study involved 35 healthy women who usually slept the recommended seven to eight hours each night.
During the first six weeks of the study, they followed a regular sleep schedule. But for the next six weeks, they went to bed an hour and a half later than usual. They wore sleep trackers on their wrists to track their sleep habits.
It was found that after just six weeks of sleep deprivation, the cells lining the participants’ blood vessels were exposed to harmful oxidants.
“This happened because the sleep-deprived cells were unable to activate antioxidant reactions to clear out harmful molecules. As a result, these sleep-deprived cells become inflamed and dysfunctional, which is an early critical stage in the development of cardiovascular disease,” explains the cardiologist.
This is one of the first direct evidences that mild chronic sleep deprivation causes heart disease. Until now, scientists have only seen a link between sleep and heart health in epidemiological studies, but these studies can be confounded by a multitude of factors that cannot be detected and adjusted for.
“Only randomized controlled trials can determine whether this link is real and what changes in the body caused by short sleep may lead to the development of cardiovascular disease.”
The doctor warned that it is common among adults to have to go to bed late at night.
Most people get up at about the same time every day, but they tend to delay going to bed by one to two hours. The researchers wanted to mimic this behavior, which is the most common sleep pattern observed in adults.
The cardiologist recommends that adults sleep between seven and nine hours a night. However, data shows that only 32 percent of people get seven hours of sleep, and 17 percent get eight hours a night. Twenty-eight percent of people said they get six hours of sleep a night.
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