A healthy sleep pattern can help someone lower their risk of atrial fibrillation (AFib) and bradyarrhythmia, according to new data published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
While previous studies on the association between sleep behaviors and cardiac arrhythmias focused on individual sleep factors, the study's authors said their work was designed to focus more on overall sleep patterns.
The study’s authors tracked data from 403,187 patients who participated in the UK Biobank study. Forty-eight percent of patients were men, and the mean patient age was 56.5 years old.
In the study, a healthy sleep pattern was defined by chronotype, sleep duration, insomnia, snoring and daytime sleepiness. The person's genetic risk score for AFib was also considered.
Researchers analyzed 11,724 incident AFib/atrial flutter episodes, 1,725 incident ventricular arrhythmias and 4,349 incident bradyarrhythmias during a median of 11 years of follow-up.
Overall, the authors found that the healthy sleep pattern was significantly associated with lower risks of AFib/flutter and bradyarrhythmia, but not ventricular arrhythmias.
Data from the study showed that women and nonsmokers were more likely to have a healthier sleep pattern. Participants with healthier sleep patterns also seemed to be less materially deprived, have a lower BMI and be more physically active. These individuals were also less likely to be diagnosed with hypertension, type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol.
In addition, the authors found that the genetic predisposition to AFib drastically modified the association of a healthy sleep pattern with the risk of AFib. The inverse association of the healthy sleep pattern with the risk of AFib appeared to be stronger among those with a lower genetic risk of AFib.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first large prospective analysis to examine the association of adherence to an overall healthy sleep pattern with the risks of arrhythmias,” wrote lead author Xiang Li, MD, PhD, of Tulane University, and colleagues. “This healthy sleep pattern comprehensively integrates five aspects of sleep behaviors, including chronotype, sleep duration, insomnia, snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness.”
The authors concluded that long-term studies are warranted to evaluate the impact of adherence to a healthy sleep pattern on other cardiovascular outcomes.
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