Kelsie Full, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Epidemiology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, talks about how poor sleep can negatively affect your heart health.
Interview conducted by Ivanhoe Broadcast News in 2023.
How does sleep loss impact the heart?
Full: So atherogenesis is the process in which fatty plaques build up in the arteries and that causes them to stiffen. They’re are several ways through which poor sleep and insufficient sleep can contribute to atherosclerosis and that fatty build up of plaque. Poor sleep can alter the regulation of hormones. It can cause increased inflammation as well as impacting the immune system, and all of that can lead to fatty plaques building up. And additionally, poor sleep alter the tissue and the artery walls, which can impact their ability to be flexible, so it makes them more stiff.
What about electronics right before bed? How does that affect it?
Full: So it’s really important before bedtime to have a healthy sleep routine. So what’s recommended is low levels of light, good temperature in the room, a dark room, and then not exposing yourself to a lot of bright lights because that would trigger your body to stay awake. So you want to minimize light exposure before sleep.
Does sleep clean the brain and relax the body for the next day? How does that work?
Full: So there’s many important functions that happen in the body during sleep. Of these for the brain it’s important for- I’m going to start over. There’s many important functions that happen in the body during sleep. For the brain sleep is the time when the brain is flushed of harmful toxins that can contribute to Alzheimer’s and dementia in the heart. The heart rate rest during sleep, the blood pressure drops and this allows the heart to rest and restore itself. So getting adequate sleep is really important to allow these important biological processes to occur.
What happens, physically and mentally, when you don’t get enough sleep?
Full: if you’re not able to get good, sufficient, well rested sleep, you’re not going to feel your best, which is one of the implications. The other implication is that important processes, biologically, that happen when you sleep aren’t able to occur. And this is why getting sufficient, healthy, good quality sleep is really important to your health.
Is there anything I’m missing or any other just important things about sleep loss and heart, and heart disease that you want to touch on?
Full: Maybe specific to the article, I can talk about sleep regularity. How about, I’ll say this, there are multiple components of sleep health that are really important to our overall health and functioning. Getting enough sleep quality or getting sufficient amount of sleep is very important to your health. But it’s also really important to get regular sleep, where you’re sleeping about the same time each night and at the same time. It’s important to align your sleep timing with your circadian rhythms or the internal clock in your body. So there are multiple components of sleep health that are very important to our health.
What did your study find?
Full: Okay. So we were interested in studying sleep regularity, which is looking at how consistently someone’s sleep schedule is throughout the week. And we were interested in looking if sleep regularity is associated with subclinical cardiovascular disease. And what I mean about that, is I mean, we were interested in looking at the association between sleep regularity and atherosclerosis, or the build up of the fatty plaque in the heart, in the arteries. And we found that in this large racially ethnically diverse sample of- and we found in this large racially ethnically diverse sample of adults who are about middle age, that sleep irregularity, so more irregular sleep patterns were associated with atherosclerosis or the build up of fatty plaque in the arteries.
What does it mean for the patient, your findings?
Full: So in our sample of adults at Mid Life we found approximately 40% of adults were actually having irregular sleep patterns so their sleep was varying by more than 90 minutes per night. Let me say that again. In our large sample, we found that approximately 40% of adults had irregular sleep patterns and their sleep vary across the week by about 90 minutes or more. And this is really important because sleep regularity is something that we can potentially target. So we can try to have more consistent bedtimes we can to wake up at about the same time, or if we have one night where we go out to dinner late or we are up late with our children, we can try to have a more regular sleep pattern throughout the week.
END OF INTERVIEW
This information is intended for additional research purposes only. It is not to be used as a prescription or advice from Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc. or any medical professional interviewed. Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc. assumes no responsibility for the depth or accuracy of physician statements. Procedures or medicines apply to different people and medical factors; always consult your physician on medical matters.
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