Getting too much or too little sleep, may be bad for your heart, say researchers, adding that people who get seven or eight hours of sleep per night have less stiffness in their arteries, which is associated with a lower risk of developing heart disease or suffering a stroke.
"The message, based on our findings, is 'sleep well, but not too well.' Getting too little sleep appears bad for your health but too much seems to be harmful as well," said study lead author Evangelos Oikonomou from Yale university in the US.
The researchers found that even after accounting for other known risk factors for heart disease or stroke, people who slept less than six hours or more than eight hours a night had significantly greater odds of having plaque buildup in the walls of their carotid arteries--a 54 per cent and 39 per cent increase, respectively compared with those who got seven or eight hours of shut eye.The study adds to mounting evidence that sleep patterns, similar to diet and exercise, may play a defining role in someone's cardiovascular risk.
