(ORDO NEWS) — American doctors have found that irregular sleep increases the likelihood of cholesterol plaques in the coronary artery, as well as the risk of developing other manifestations of atherosclerosis by about 33-40%.
As a rule, atherosclerosis occurs as a result of the accumulation of cholesterol on the walls of blood vessels, which subsequently leads to their thickening, calcium accumulation and loss of flexibility.
The exact reasons for this are still unknown to scientists, but recent observations show that the likelihood of developing atherosclerosis increases with malnutrition and the presence of bad habits.
The researchers found that in a similar way, the development of atherosclerosis is affected by the periodic lack of sleep and its irregular nature.
Scientists came to this conclusion in the course of observing the lives of more than 2,000 thousand US residents, whose average age is about 69 years.
All of these people participated in the MESA project, aimed at studying all the risk factors that contribute to the development of atherosclerosis.
Research results
As part of MESA, volunteers wore bracelets for four years, which fixed when the participants went to bed and woke up.
In addition, the researchers tracked the patterns of falling asleep and waking up in a significant proportion of the volunteers, and asked them to keep a diary and note how their sleep patterns changed during the week.
Doctors compared the results of these observations and surveys with how often cholesterol plaques, areas with reduced flexibility of vessel walls, and other manifestations of atherosclerosis were recorded in the arteries of volunteers.
It turned out that sleep disturbances were one of the most significant risk factors contributing to the development of the deviation.
In particular, in the presence of significant weekly fluctuations in the typical duration of sleep, exceeding two hours, volunteers were approximately 33-40% more likely to have a large number of cholesterol plaques on the walls of the coronary artery.
Plaques appeared on the surface of the walls of the carotid artery 12% more often, and abnormally high stiffness of the vessel walls was diagnosed twice as often.
Such observational results, according to scientists, speak in favor of the fact that the incidence of atherosclerosis at the global level can be significantly reduced if the quality of sleep is improved and measures are developed that will allow the inhabitants of the planet to maintain a regular sleep pattern.
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