Lack of sleep may increase risk of Atherosclerosis and heart disease

Chronic short sleep is associated with an enhanced risk of Atherosclerosis, heart disease, and thus increased morbidity and mortality. New research in Experimental Physiology may have figured out why lack of sleep increases susceptibility to heart disease and allowing doctors to identify the patients who might need to change their habits before they develop the disease.

It's not completely clear why less sleep is detrimental to heart health, but researchers understand that sleeping too little causes disruptions in underlying health conditions and biological processes like glucose metabolism, blood pressure, and inflammation. The same may be true for oversleeping.

In adults who regularly slept fewer than 7 hours per night, the levels of certain microRNAs, (molecules that influence whether or not a gene is expressed) were lower. These molecules play a key role in regulating vascular health and thus levels are now recognized to be sensitive and specific biomarkers of cardiovascular health, inflammation, and disease. In other words, a lowered level of these molecules is associated with heart disease, so they could be used as a biomarker to determine who is more susceptible to disease.

Researchers tested sedentary, middle-aged adults without heart disease from the local major metropolitan surrounding Denver and Boulder, Colorado. Subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to accurately estimate average nightly sleep and a small amount of blood was taken from each subject after an overnight fast. MicroRNAs 125a, 126 and 146a were extracted from the blood and measured.

Jamie Hijmans, an author on the study said: "The link between insufficient sleep and cardiovascular disease may be due, in part, to changes in microRNAs. These findings suggest there may be a "fingerprint" associated with a person's sleep habits, and that fluctuations in miRNA levels may serve as a warning or guide to disease stage and progression."