People who manage to catch up on lost sleep over the weekend might be doing their hearts a big favor, reducing their risk of heart disease by as much as one-fifth.
This finding comes from a study presented at ESC Congress 2024, which analyzed sleep data from over 90,000 UK Biobank participants. The research highlights the protective effect of compensatory sleep, especially in individuals who typically experience insufficient sleep during the workweek.
Sleep Compensation and Heart Health
The demands of the working week, often influenced by school or work schedules, can lead to sleep disruption and deprivation. However, new research presented at ESC Congress 2024 shows that people that ‘catch up’ on their sleep by sleeping in at weekends may see their risk of heart disease fall by one-fifth.
“Sufficient compensatory sleep is linked to a lower risk of heart disease,” said study co-author Mr Yanjun Song of the State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Centre for Cardiovascular Disease, Beijing, China. “The association becomes even more pronounced among individuals who regularly experience inadequate sleep on weekdays.”
Research on Sleep and Cardiac Risk
It is well known that people who suffer sleep deprivation ‘sleep in’ on days off to mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation. However, there is a lack of research on whether this compensatory sleep helps heart health.
The authors used data from 90,903 subjects involved in the UK Biobank project, and to evaluate the relationship between compensated weekend sleep and heart disease, sleep data was recorded using accelerometers and grouped by quartiles (divided into four approximately equal groups from most compensated sleep to least). Q1 (n = 22,475 was the least compensated, having -16.05 hours to -0.26 hours (ie, having even less sleep); Q2 (n = 22,901) had -0.26 to +0.45 hours; Q3 (n=22,692) had +0.45 to +1.28 hours, and Q4 (n=22,695) had the most compensatory sleep (1.28 to 16.06 hours).
Evaluating Sleep Patterns and Heart Disease
Sleep deprivation was self-reported, with those self-reporting less than 7 hours sleep per night defined as having sleep deprivation. A total of 19,816 (21.8%) of participants were defined as sleep deprived. The rest of the cohort may have experienced occasional inadequate sleep, but on average, their daily hours of sleep did not meet the criteria for sleep deprivation – the authors recognize this a limitation to their data.
Hospitalization records and cause of death registry information were used to diagnose various cardiac diseases including ischaemic heart disease (IHD), heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF), and stroke.
With a median follow-up of almost 14 years, participants in the group with the most compensatory sleep (quartile 4) were 19% less likely to develop heart disease than those with the least (quartile 1). In the subgroup of patients with daily sleep deprivation those with the most compensatory sleep had a 20% lower risk of developing heart disease than those with the least. The analysis did not show any differences between men and women.
Meeting: ESC Congress 2024
Co-author Mr Zechen Liu, also of State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Centre for Cardiovascular Disease, Beijing, China, added: “Our results show that for the significant proportion of the population in modern society that suffers from sleep deprivation, those who have the most ‘catch-up’ sleep at weekends have significantly lower rates of heart disease than those with the least.”
Funding: This work was supported by grants from CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (No. 2021-I2M-1-008).
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3 Comments
I am a medical anthropologist sleep researcher and author. Sleep is a good thing, but how you sleep is important. Sleep position affects circulation to the brain, and well as causing compression problems throughout the body. Side sleeping compresses the shoulders and hips, causing pain. Many people with chronic shoulder or hip pain don’t realize it could be from their sleep position. Belly sleeping is the worst, with the ribs unable to expand properly and the head turned to the side, which lowers brain circulation. Side and belly sleeping also compresses the ears against the pillow, which causes ear aches, and the eye pressing down on the pillow will affect vision. Back sleeping is the best, since there is a smooth back with no compression issues, but you need to have head-of-bed elevation to improve overall circulation to the brain.
In fact, lots of research shows the importance of gravity on brain circulation, and the need for some head-of-bed elevation to improve brain circulation and prevent excessive brain pressure from lying flat. Sleeping too flat causes fluid to accumulate in the head and brain overnight, causing sinus congestion, puffy eyes, and a groggy brain. It also causes migraines, sleep apnea, stroke, glaucoma, and, we believe, Alzheimer’s. The brain is the central nervous system and affects every body function. If the brain does not get proper circulation, then many different bodily functions can suffer. Elevating the head of the bed can eliminate migraines, we found in our Migraine Relief Project. Other research shows it treats glaucoma, sleep apnea, and GERD. In fact, doctors prescribe wedges to elevate the head of the bed for people with GERD and acid reflux. Gravity helps keep stomach contents from back-flowing into the throat when lying down.
This also affects the heart. NASA scientists study zero gravity effects on the body, including on the heart and brain, since they know astronauts suffer from fluid shifting to the brain in space, where there is no gravity to pull the fluid down from the head to the heart. They simulate this on Earth by having people lie flat. They discovered that 30-degree head-of-bed elevation is optimal for heart and brain circulation.
So the answer is to get enough sleep, but do it with the head of the bed elevated. We found that even a 5-10 degree elevation works, and you will feel the difference the next morning, with less sinus stuffiness and a sharper mind upon awakening. You will also have to sleep less, since the sleep will be more cleansing of the brain if it has good circulation. For more, see my article, Heads Up! The Way You Are Sleeping May Be Killing You!
https://www.academia.edu/1483361/Heads_Up_The_Way_You_Are_Sleeping_May_Be_Killing_You_
Now is it that prolonged sleep causes the heart to be healthier, or is it that people less prone to stress sleep better and simultaneously have less heart problems? I’d wager it’s the latter.
I’m surprised that in a European study like this, they were able to find participants with jobs requiring them to work hard enough that foregoing sleep was necessary during the week.