Modern lifestyles have become stressful and fast-paced, and often people become sleep-deprived throughout the week and try to catch up on the weekend. According to new research presented at the ESC Congress 2024, those who catch up on their sleep over the weekend may be reducing their risk of heart disease 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.”
The study
For this study, researchers utilized data from 90,903 people who were enrolled in the UK Biobank Project to evaluate the relationship between compensated weekend sleep and heart disease. Participant 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).
Participant hospitalization records and cause of death registry information were used to diagnose various cardiac diseases including ischemic heart disease (IHD), heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF), and stroke over a median follow-up of close to 14 years.
What they found
The analysis revealed that 19,816 participants were sleep-deprived (less than 7 hours of sleep per night). The remaining participants may have experienced occasional inadequate sleep, but on average, their daily hours of sleep did not meet the criteria for sleep deprivation. Additionally, sleep deprivation was self-reported, the authors recognize these as a limitation of their data.
Those in the group with the most compensatory sleep (quartile 4) were found to be 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 were found to have a 20% lower risk of developing heart disease than those with the least. According to the researchers, the analysis did not show any differences between men and women.
Take away
“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,” said co-author Mr Zechen Liu, also of State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Centre for Cardiovascular Disease, Beijing, China.
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