(WSVN) - If you are someone who doesn’t get a lot of sleep a night, you may want to be careful.
According to a study posted in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, people who get less than six hours of sleep a night are more likely to develop heart disease than those who get between seven and eight hours of sleep a night.
The study gathered almost 4,000 people with no known history of heart disease. The average age of the participants was 46 and two-thirds were male.
During the study, participants wore a device that measures activity for seven days to study their sleep. The results showed that people who slept less than six hours a night were 27 percent more likely to develop atherosclerosis: a buildup of plaque in the body’s arteries.
However, simply getting enough sleep is not enough. The study also showed that those who did not sleep well were 34 percent more likely to have atherosclerosis.
“It is important to realize that shorter sleep duration that is of good quality can overcome the detrimental effects of the shorter length,” said Dr. Valentin Fuster.
Unfortunately, sleeping too much may be just as harmful. The study also suggested that spleeping more than eight hours a night might be associated with an increase in plaque in the arteries.
To read the full study, click here.
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