Poor sleep could triple risk for heart disease: U.S. study

A new study suggests that a combination of characteristics from poor sleep could triple a person's risk for heart disease, including regularity of sleep, sleep satisfaction, alertness during waking hours and sleep duration.

While some people may experience one or two aspects of poor sleep, an American study published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that experiencing multiple poor sleep aspects could compound the health problems a person experiences as a result.

Researchers from the School of Aging at the University of South Florida focused on certain aspects of sleep health, including regularity, satisfaction, alertness during waking hours, timing of sleep and sleep duration.

Their findings suggest that with each additional poor health aspect self-reported by the participants in the study, there was an associated 54 per cent increase in their risk for heart disease. For selected participants who had their self-reported data confirmed by wearing a monitoring device that recorded their sleep activity, poor sleep was associated with a 141 per cent increase in risk.

The median age of the participants of the study was 53.4 years.