Heart attack risk: Insomnia affects the heart

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Sleeping poorly can be dangerous: If you roll around in the pillow without sleep, you run a significantly higher risk of serious cardiovascular diseases.

A person overslept a good third of his lifetime. "Sleep is important for biological regeneration," says Qiao He from Shenyang University. Together with colleagues, she conducted an overview study to examine the effects of sleep problems on cardiovascular health. For this purpose, the researchers evaluated data from 15 studies with a total of more than 160,000 participants.

The investigations followed the people over periods of between three and 30 years. In total, the researchers registered almost 12,000 serious cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, coronary heart disease and cardiac insufficiency.

Almost 30 percent higher risk

Participants who reported having difficulty falling asleep were 27 percent more likely to have a cardiovascular event.

But anyone who had problems staying asleep or who stated that they did not get a good night's sleep was more at risk than a good sleeper: With these types of sleep disorders, the risk increased by eleven and 18 percent, respectively.

Disturbed sleep, disturbed body control

The researchers are not yet able to precisely identify the underlying mechanisms for the phenomenon. Previous studies have shown, however, that sleep disorders negatively affect the metabolism and disrupt the hormonal balance.

In addition, the blood pressure rises in sleep disorders and the body produces larger amounts of inflammatory messengers. "All of these factors favor cardiovascular diseases," says He.

Land of the Insomniac

"Sleep disorders are common - that is why they should be included more in the clinical risk assessment," says the scientist.

Just recently, a health report by the DAK on the sleep quality of Germans provided worrying figures. According to this, the proportion of employed people between the ages of 35 and 65 who sleep poorly has risen to 80 percent. That means an increase of 66 percent since 2010. Almost every tenth person suffers from particularly severe sleep disorders, the so-called insomnias.

Work stress with performance and deadline pressure as well as constant availability even in leisure time are common reasons for sleep disorders. But also those who watch TV late or use a laptop or smartphone are more likely to have problems sleeping well.

Tags:  home remedies womenshealth drugs