Sleeping for nine hours or more per night on a regular basis may increase the risk of stroke in older women. Previous studies regarding sleep duration and associated risk of stroke or coronary artery disease have provided inconsistent results. To explore the relationship between cardiovascular diseases and sleep patterns, researchers in America studied 93,175 women, aged between 50 and 79 years. The participants were asked about their sleep duration and lifestyle factors, depression, snoring, sleepiness symptoms, and other cardiovascular disease-related clinical characteristics were taken into account. About 8 percent of the participants reported their sleep duration to be less than 5 hours and 5 percent said that they slept for more than 9 hours per night. During seven years of follow-up, 1166 cases of ischaemic stroke (caused due to blockage of an artery in the brain) had occurred. It was found that those who slept for more than 9 hours had a 60 to 70 percent increased risk of stroke than those who slept for around 7 hours per night. Further, those who got no more than 6 hours of sleep per night were at a 14 percent higher risk of stroke than those who got seven hours of sleep. Although it can be concluded that habitual sleep patterns are important determinants of ischaemic stroke in post-menopausal women, further research is needed to probe the reasons for the findings.
Stroke
July 2008
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