A study suggests that sleeping the same number of hours each night would benefit our heart and help prevent atherosclerosis.
Get enough sleep each night is essential for our body. Sleep helps boost our memory abilities, our immune system and even our mood. In fact, specialists recommend that adults sleep on average between 7 and 9 a.m. by night. In children, depending on their age, the figure varies more between 9 and 12 hours.
However, does sleeping exactly the same number of hours each night have an impact on our health? The answer is yes according to a team of researchers from the University of Nashville. Their latest study (published in the Journal of the American Heart Association) reveals that this regularity would be very beneficial for our heart.
In particular, it would prevent the appearance of a specific disease: atherosclerosis.
A disorder that affects the arteries that supply blood to the heart
Atherosclerosis is a disorder characterized by an accumulation of fat in the arteries. This accumulation even has a name: we then speak of atheroma plaque. However, these plates harden the vessels and make blood circulation more difficult. While it can affect all the arteries in the body, atherosclerosis can be very dangerous if it affects the heart.
Indeed, narrower arteries mean that the heart is less well supplied with blood. In fact, this disorder can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. And the researchers found that the formation of atherosclerotic plaque could be increased in cases of irregular sleep.
Increased risks with a weekly variation of 2 hours of sleep
To determine the impact of sleep irregularity on the heart, the researchers invited volunteers to conduct a small experiment. They recruited 2,000 volunteers with an average age of 69. Then they asked them to keep a sleep diary. In the latter, they indicate how long they slept each night, if their sleep was restless…
At the same time, these volunteers also had to perform various sleep-related examinations. Then the researchers gathered all this data to analyze it in detail. According to their findings, the fact ofhaving an irregular sleep would multiply by 1.4 the risks of problems in the arteries and therefore the problems of the heart.
Moreover, they specify that this figure concerns patients with a sleep variation of only 2 hours per week. However, these results are not related to arterial analyses. For the time being, these are observational studies, but they may eventually pave the way for other research.