Healthy sleep patterns can reduce the risk

• Researchers report that better sleep may translate into a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

• They add that consistent and healthy sleep patterns can improve a person’s overall well-being.

• Experts say people having trouble sleeping should rethink pre-sleep activities and avoid stimulation before bedtime.

A study published in the journal JAMA Network Open reports that midlife and older adults with healthy sleep habits have a better chance of avoiding cardiovascular disease.

Researchers used data collected between 2008 and 2018 from the Dongfeng-Tongji cohort, an ongoing, prospective study in Shiyan, China.

The research team looked at 15,306 individuals with an average age of 66 years with 58% being female and 42% being male. The researchers reported that 5,474 (36%) people had persistent unfavorable sleep patterns and 3,946 (26%) had persistent favorable sleep patterns.

The researchers established that 3,669 members of the study group had documented cases of cardiovascular disease during that period, including 2,986 cases of coronary heart disease and 683 cases of stroke over a mean follow-up period of nearly 5 years.

Compared to people with persistent unfavorable sleep patterns, those with persistent favorable sleep patterns had a significantly lower risk of new onset cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke during the follow-up period.

Researchers said the genetic risk for cardiovascular disease didn’t modify these associations.

“However, sleep pattern changes and genetic risk were jointly associated with the [coronary heart disease] and stroke risk in a dose-dependent manner,” the study authors wrote.