Getting enough sleep is essential to maintaining optimal health and well-being. According to research published in the European Heart Journal – Open, an ESC journal, sleeping less than five hours each night increases the risk of developing peripheral artery disease (PAD) by 74 percent.
“Our study suggests that getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night is a good habit to reduce the risk of PAD,” said study author Shuai Yuan of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. More than 200 million people worldwide have peripheral artery disease (PAD)2, where arteries in the legs become clogged, restricting blood flow and increasing the risk of stroke and heart attack.
“Insufficient night-time sleep and daytime naps have previously been associated with an increased risk of coronary artery disease, which is caused by clogging of the arteries like in PAD,” said Yuan. It is one of the top-ranked complaints. There are limited data on the impact of sleep habits on PAD and vice versa, and our study aims to fill that gap.”