Research out of Peking University in Beijing, China, has established a link between insomnia and heart disease, ABC News reports.
According to ABC, the study, published in Neurology Nov. 8, followed nearly half a million Chinese adults for 10 years in an effort to determine the relationship between insomnia and CVD and stroke. Participants were surveyed about their difficulty falling or staying asleep, as well as their daytime functionality.
After a decade of tracking CV outcomes in the population, first author Liming Li and colleagues reported that overall risk of CVD or stroke was 9% greater in those who reported insomnia, 7% greater in people who woke up in the early morning and 13% greater in people who reported daytime dysfunction because of poor sleep.
The relationship was strongest among young adults and people who didn’t have high blood pressure at the study’s baseline.
“These results suggest that if we can target people who are having trouble sleeping with behavioral therapies, it’s possible that we could reduce the number of cases of stroke, heart attack and other diseases later down the line,” Li said.
Read more from ABC below:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.