Can Insomnia Increase Risk of Cardiovascular Disease?

People who had trouble sleeping for weeks or months at a time may moderately raise their risk of having a heart attack, according to a study from Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway.
The study involved more than 52,000 Norwegian adults who are involved on earlier research about insomnia during 1995 to 1997. Followed by researchers for 11 years, the hospital records and causes of death were examined. A survival analysis was also performed, adjusting factors that could influence results such as age, sex, marital status, education level, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, weight, exercise and occupation. Mental conditions that cause insomnia, like anxiety and depression, were also considered.
Because as much as 30 percent of all people today experience at least one episode of insomnia (defined as difficulty of falling asleep and/or staying asleep) and there are many contributing factors to heart attack, this study reveals how close people can be to heart attacks.
The results yielded that risks for having heart attack are as follows; a 45 percent risk for those who had trouble falling asleep almost daily had, 30 percent risk for those who had problems staying asleep had and 27 percent risk for those who did not wake up feeling refreshed in the morning during the last week. In addition, heart attack risk increases with each additional insomnia symptom.
Because sleep problems are common yet fairly easy to treat, people should be aware of the connection between insomnia and heart attack. A grave problem such as heart attack should not stem from a simple problem like insomnia. People with problems falling asleep should contact their doctors for solutions, commented by the researchers.
The reason how insomnia drives up heart attack risk is unknown, but some suggest that sleep problems affect blood pressure and level of inflammation – factors that are directly linked to heart attack risk. Every year, about 785,000 Americans have first-time heart attack.

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