Tennessee: A new study suggests that irregular sleep habits May increase the risk of atherosclerosis in older people.
According to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the US state of Tennessee, people who go to bed at different times throughout the week or get uneven amounts of sleep each night may have an increased risk of atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis is a condition in which sticky material builds up in the blood vessels.
This buildup narrows the arteries and reduces blood flow, limiting access to oxygen and other nutrients to the rest of the body or forming blood clots in the arteries that block the blood vessels. It can also cause a heart attack or stroke.
Researchers studied 2,000 people from across the United States and followed them for three years. The average age of these individuals was 69 years.
In the study, researchers found that over a one-week period, participants whose sleep duration was more than two hours apart were 40 percent more likely to have plaque build-up in their arteries.
These individuals were also 12 percent more likely to have fatty deposits in the arteries of the neck and nearly twice as likely to have an abnormal result on an atherosclerosis test.
Research participants whose sleep patterns differed by more than 90 minutes per week had more calcium deposits in the arteries supplying blood to the heart than those with a 30-minute difference.
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