Modern lifestyles mean many people are sleep-deprived on work or school days, and try to “catch-up” with compensatory sleep on weekends – which, shows a recent study, may reduce the risk of heart disease by around 20%.
The demands of the working week, often influenced by school or work schedules, can lead to sleep disruption and deprivation, but the findings of the study of more than 90 000 people – presented at ESC Congress 2024 – show that those who make up for the lack of sleep on weekends may see their risk of heart disease fall by one-fifth.
Study co-author Yanjun Song of the State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Centre for Cardiovascular Disease in Beijing, said it was well known that people who suffer sleep deprivation “sleep in” on days off to mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation.
However, there is a lack of research on whether this compensatory sleep helps heart health.
The authors used data from 90 903 subjects involved in the UK Biobank project, and to evaluate the relationship between compensated weekend sleep and heart disease, sleep data were recorded using accelerometers and grouped by quartiles (divided into four approximately equal groups from most compensated sleep to least).
Q1 (n = 22475 was the least compensated, having -16.05 hours to -0.26 hours (ie, having even less sleep); Q2 (n = 22 901) had -0.26 to +0.45 hours; Q3 (n=22,692) had +0.45 to +1.28 hours, and Q4 (n=22 695) had the most compensatory sleep (1.28 to 16.06 hours).
Sleep deprivation was self-reported, with those self-reporting less than seven hours’ sleep per night defined as having sleep deprivation.
A total of 19 816 (21.8%) of participants were defined as sleep deprived.
The rest of the cohort may have experienced occasional inadequate sleep, but on average, their daily hours of sleep did not meet the criteria for sleep deprivation – the authors recognise this as a limitation to their data.
Hospitalisation records and cause of death registry information were used to diagnose various cardiac diseases including ischaemic heart disease (IHD), heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF) and stroke.
With a median follow-up of almost 14 years, participants in the group with the most compensatory sleep (quartile 4) were 19% less likely to develop heart disease than those with the least (quartile 1).
In the subgroup of patients with daily sleep deprivation those with the most compensatory sleep had a 20% lower risk of developing heart disease than those with the least.
The analysis did not show any differences between men and women. Co-author Zechen Liu, also of State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, added: “Our results show that for the significant proportion of the population in modern society that suffers from sleep deprivation, those who have the most ‘catch-up’ sleep at weekends have significantly lower rates of heart disease than those with the least.”
Study details
Weekend compensatory sleep is associated with reduced risk of heart disease: a prospective UK Biobank-based cohort study
Z Liu1 , YJ Song1 , 1State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Center for Cardiovascular D – Beijing – China ,
Presented at ESC 2024 on 1 September
Abstract
Background and Aims
Influenced by the demands of school or work, people often fall out of sync with their circadian rhythms, which leads to sleeping in on days off. Despite this phenomenon, there is a lack of research examining whether compensatory weekend sleep has positive effects on heart health.
Methods and results
Our prospective cohort study utilised data from the UK Biobank (UKB) and encompassed 90,903 participants. To evaluate the relationship between compensated weekend sleep and heart disease. The sleep data was recorded by Axivity AX3 accelerometer from UKB and grouped by quartiles. Hospitalisation records and cause of death registry information were used to diagnose various cardiac diseases including IHD, HF, AF, and stroke. Then multivariate Cox proportional hazard modelling was used to examine the potential impact of compensated sleep on the risk of heart disease.
At a median follow-up time of up to 13.8 years, we found that participants in the compensatory sleep group(Q4) had a lower risk of having heart disease in the fully adjusted model (HR: 0.809, 95%CI: 0.766,0.854), which was not influenced by the effect of genetic risk for IHD, HF, or AF. These relationships were even more pronounced in the subgroup with daily sleep deprivation (HR:0.801, 95%CI: 0.718,0.894).
Conclusion
Sufficient compensatory sleep on weekends is linked to a low risk of heart disease, including IHD, AF, HF, and stroke, which is independent of genetic risk. And the association becomes even more pronounced among individuals who regularly experience inadequate sleep on weekdays.
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