Sleep deprivation and heart disease

Sleep Deprivation and Heart Disease

By Dr. Neli Stoyanova

I know many people out there who suffer from sleep deprivation and heart disease, and don't even think about the connection between them. Baby boomers, pay close attention to this because it can literally save your heart, prevent you from high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

For many years sleep deprivation had been connected to memory and concentration but never to big waistline and stress.

Sleep deprivation lowers growth hormone level. Growth hormone is directly linked to accumulation of fat around the waist. The belly fat is particularly bad for your heart- hence the connection between sleep deprivation and heart.

And there is more.

Sleep deprivation lowers the hormone leptin that tells you that you are not hungry. This can happen after only 2 nights of 4 hours sleep (Annals of Internal Medicine, December 7, 2004).

As a result you keep eating and craving carbohydrate foods like doughnuts or pancakes with a lot of syrup.

What I want you to understand is that sleep deprivation leads to overall obesity but the fat accumulated around the waist is the most dangerous for the heart. The sleep deprivation and heart disease connection goes through the big waistline.

Sleep is good for the heart and can be used as a treatment for high blood pressure. Dr Daniel Gottlieb (Boston University School of Medicine) questioned more than 5, 000 baby boomers and found out that those sleeping less than 6 hours had a 66% greater prevalence of high blood pressure.

A study conducted by Eve Van Cauter (University of Chicago, 1999) showed a direct link between sleep deprivation and diabetes.

After 6 days of sleeping only 4 hours per 24 hours, the young and healthy male participants in the study developed a pre-diabetic state. Isn’t that something to think about- after only 6 days of sleep deprivation!

Here is what happened to the young and healthy men. Sleep deprivation led to inhibition of insulin production. Without insulin the blood glucose goes up above the normal range. The morning cortisol was low and this explained the lack of energy after a sleepless night.

I found the following study particularly interesting from a practical stand point. Dr Dinges from the University of Pennsylvania studied numbers from a survey conducted in 2003, called the U.S. Department of Labor's American. The study found that for each eight minutes in the car beyond 40 min, sleep time drops by about 15 minutes.

So if you drive only 40 min a day to go to work and make some errands you still can get 6-7 hours of good sleep but if you put an additional 15 min of driving you are getting 30 min less sleep. Isn’t this amazing?

Think about this again. Only 15 more min beyond 40 min. can make you fat even if you had been driving to the tennis court to practice- you are still depriving yourself from sleep and your stress level is going up.

It does not matter if you go to the gym or run 3 miles every day. It does not matter if you buy only organic food and eat the best quality food. Why? Because if you exercise but you deprive yourself from sleep or you eat well but don’t reduce your level of stress and don’t get enough sleep, you are doing it all wrong.