{"id":14917,"date":"2025-07-22T08:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/14917\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T08:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:03:09","slug":"sleep-quality-next-target-for-cv-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/14917\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep Quality Next Target for CV Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Dalai Lama\u2019s claim that it is the \u201cbest meditation\u201d to Benjamin Franklin\u2019s insistence that it makes a person \u201chealthy, wealthy, and wise,\u201d a good night\u2019s sleep has long been touted as the secret<\/a> to a healthy life.<\/p>\n

And the American Heart Association (AHA) agrees. In 2022, the AHA added sleep duration to Life\u2019s Simple 8<\/a>, their checklist for optimal heart health. This was on the basis of strong evidence from epidemiologic studies linking sleep duration to poor cardiometabolic outcomes, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and stroke.<\/p>\n

But emerging research suggests that it\u2019s time for cardiologists to consider more than just sleep duration.<\/p>\n

\u201cLack of sleep has been long known to be associated with coronary heart disease,\u201d said Martha Gulati, MD, the director of Preventive Cardiology in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Gulati emphasized that achieving adequate sleep (between 7 and 9 hours) has also been associated with healthy traits, such as better blood pressure, better cholesterol control, and healthy weight.<\/p>\n

\"photoMartha Gulati, MD<\/p>\n

However, the number of hours a person sleeps each night just scratches the surface she said. Research has shown that consistency and preferred timing of sleep, known as sleep chronotype, are important as well.<\/p>\n

In a 2023 UK-based study<\/a>, middle-aged adults who considered themselves night owls \u2014 the evening sleep chronotype \u2014 had signs of potentially detrimental cardiac remodeling on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging compared with morning folks.<\/p>\n

And the damage may start early. In a recent study in adolescents,<\/a> shorter sleep duration was associated with adverse markers of left ventricular wall remodeling and liver fat accumulation suggesting a cumulative effect on health, according to the authors.<\/p>\n

The MESA Sleep Ancillary study<\/a> found that people with greater irregularity in sleep patterns \u2014 such as falling asleep at different times each night \u2014 had a higher coronary artery calcium burden than those with more regular sleep patterns.<\/p>\n

Because sleep is associated with a range of cardiometabolic diseases, Julie Marcus, MD, a cardiologist at Weill Cornell Medicine\/New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York City, said addressing poor sleep has become an important but underappreciated aspect of maintaining a healthy heart.<\/p>\n

\"photoJulie Marcus, MD<\/p>\n

She added that patients also need to be aware that poor sleep can affect their health and what the various components of healthy sleep are.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond saying do you snore [or] stop breathing at night and do you sleep between 7 and 9 hours, there\u2019s so much more to sleep that is important,\u201d Marcus said.<\/p>\n

Expanding the Definition of Sleep Health<\/p>\n

Early this year, the AHA published an updated scientific statement<\/a> that addresses multidimensional sleep health. This includes duration, timing, regularity, sleep-related daytime functioning, satisfaction, continuity \u2014 the ability to initiate and maintain sleep \u2014 and sleep architecture, or the amount and timing of the various sleep stages.<\/p>\n

Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, a sleep health researcher and lead author of the AHA statement, explained that it was developed to promote the breadth of new research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to let people know that sleep is more than just how long you sleep at night,\u201d said St-Onge, who is the director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research at Columbia University, New York City.<\/p>\n

\"photoMarie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD<\/p>\n

For example, she explained excessive daytime sleepiness has been associated<\/a> with cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, and all-cause mortality. Similarly, sleep disturbances have been linked to hypertension, arterial stiffness, and coronary heart disease.<\/p>\n

Understanding Poor Sleep\u2019s Mechanism of Action<\/p>\n

St-Onge emphasized that new research has also increased understanding around the associations between poor sleep and worsening cardiometabolic outcomes.<\/p>\n

Her research has shown that sleep restriction increases oxidative stress<\/a> in the lining of the arteries that could lead to endothelial dysfunction. Short sleep also impairs the body\u2019s ability to counteract this oxidative stress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see immune suppression from poor sleep duration and poor sleep quality,\u201d St-Onge said.<\/p>\n

In addition, we have found links between sleep regularity and eating patterns<\/a>, St-Onge noted.<\/p>\n

Gulati believes that the AHA statement represents an opportunity to raise awareness among patients, cardiologists, and clinical researchers about the importance of better understanding these causal effects of poor multidimensional sleep health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is also a call to action to improve the assessment of sleep, particularly in research so we can rigorously assess these components,\u201d Gulati said. \u201cWe need to know what interventions can improve components of sleep as well, and their effect on cardiovascular health. Those knowledge gaps need to be closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking About Sleep Health<\/p>\n

Those knowledge gaps are why the statement did not offer guidance for clinical approaches, but St-Onge emphasized the importance of educating and discussing this topic with patients now.<\/p>\n

She recommended asking an open-ended question: \u2018How\u2019s your sleep?\u2019 \u201cThat opens up a conversation for people to express exactly what\u2019s bothering them with their sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, she said, \u201cIt may be they get plenty of hours of sleep, but they lie there awake for way too long, or they\u2019re having a hard time falling asleep, or they get a lot of sleep, but they still wake up not feeling refreshed during the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting the conversation \u2014 and documenting it in clinical notes \u2014 will be the first step to helping patients with poor sleep health, she said.<\/p>\n

Marcus agreed that cardiologists should make time to discuss sleep health with patients, even though it can be more complicated than addressing cholesterol or blood pressure because \u201csleep is not a number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she said that understanding a patient\u2019s poor sleep health can also provide physicians with new modifiable risk factors for improving their cardiovascular health.<\/p>\n

\u201cSleep is the next target,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cWe know it impacts health, and it\u2019s just a matter of how do we screen for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gulati reported financial relationships with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Medtronic, Merck & Co., New Amsterdam, and Zoll.<\/p>\n

St-Onge and Marcus reported no relevant financial relationships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the Dalai Lama\u2019s claim that it is the \u201cbest meditation\u201d to Benjamin Franklin\u2019s insistence that it makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,13395,13394,2103,84,2108,13396,409],"class_list":["post-14917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cardiovascular-imaging-cardiac-imaging-cv-imaging","tag-complementary-and-alternative-medicine-alternative-treatment-alternative-medicine-complementary-medicine-alternate-medical-therapy-alternate-medicine","tag-cv-risk-cardiovascular-risk-cv-risk-factors-cardiovascular-risk-factors-cardiovascular-risk-management-cv-risk-management","tag-health","tag-hypertension","tag-select-sleep-disorders","tag-sleep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}