Insomnia linked to higher heart attack risk

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Insomnia linked to higher heart attack risk

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People with insomnia face a 27 to 45 per cent higher risk of heart attack, says a research.

25 October,2011 09:54 pm

About one-third of people report having trouble sleepingand should see a doctor for help, urged the authors of the study published in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association.“Sleep problems are common and fairly easy to treat,” said Lars Erik Laugsand, lead researcher from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Public Health in Trondheim.“So it’s important that people are aware of this connection between insomnia and heart attack and talk to their doctor if they are having symptoms.”The data came from 52,610 Norwegian adults who answered a national survey about their insomnia symptoms in 1995-97. Over the next 11 years, researchers identified 2,368 people who had their first heart attacks, via hospital records and Norways National Cause of Death Registry.After adjusting for factors such as age, sex, marital status, education level, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, weight, exercise, shift work, depression and anxiety, researchers found the highest boost in risk among the most troubled sleepers. When they compared data from people who said they usually slept fine to people who said they had trouble falling asleep almost daily over the course of the last month, they saw a 45 per cent higher risk in the sleepless group.