In the United States alone, more than 795,000 people have a stroke each year. Researchers are working to understand the factors that increase the risk of stroke in order to help prevent it. A study published in Neurology this week suggests that sleep problems — including snoring, snoring, sleeping too much and too little, taking long naps and obstructive sleep apnea — may increase a person’s likelihood of having a stroke.
Having multiple sleep problems may exacerbate the risk. The lead author said: “Not only do our findings suggest that individual sleep problems may increase a person’s risk of having a stroke, but having more than five of these symptoms may lead to a five times greater risk of stroke than those without any sleep problems.” “. and stroke researcher Christine McCarthy in a statement from the University of Galway this week.
The study is part of a global research project called Interstroke that is exploring stroke risk factors. The paper included 4496 subjects (average age 62), of whom 2238 had had a stroke. Participants answered questions about sleep behaviors and issues. People who had had a stroke were matched with people of the same sex and similar ages who had not had a stroke in order to compare their experiences.
The results showed strong associations between sleep problems and stroke. “Participants who reported obstructive sleep apnea and snoring were almost three times more likely to suffer a stroke, while people who snore were almost twice as likely to suffer a stroke compared to those who did not,” the university said.
Richard Bernstein, a vascular neurologist at Northwestern Medicine who was not involved in the study, told CNET that this type of research can only detect correlations, not causal ones. This means that the findings show that sleep problems are associated with stroke risk, but may or may not be the cause of this increased risk.
It was lack of sleep associated with other health conditionsAnd improving sleep can have mental and physical health benefits. strategies for Get better sleep Including getting a regular bedtime and restricting screen use before bed. CNET Editor Adam Benjamin also has a five-minute “to-do list” hack that helped him tackle his insomnia.
Bernstein is interested to see if improving sleep problems will reduce stroke risk. “There is some evidence that fixing sleep problems reduces the risk of heart disease, and some heart problems can cause stroke,” Bernstein said in an email. “So, I would expect that addressing sleep issues would help reduce stroke risk, but to what extent that is difficult to say at this point.” This could be the focus of future research efforts.
The new study serves as a call for a better understanding of the relationship between sleep and stroke risk. “Our results suggest that sleep problems should be an area of focus for stroke prevention,” said McCarthy.
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