He who sleeps well protects the heart. Unfortunately, for many, restful sleep seems to have become optional. Disorders that occur during the night are now a feature of everyday life.
It has been scientifically proven several times that individuals with disturbed sleep have a high risk of developing diabetes, obesity, mood disorders, anxiety states and heart disease including various types of arrhythmias.
In the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Xiang Li and his working group from Tulane University in New Orleans (USA) studied the relationship between sleep quality and the development of cardiac arrhythmias. The data of over 350,000 people without particular pathologies that could compromise rest were analyzed.
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To evaluate the quality, the prevalence of nocturnal sleep (instead of during the day), the duration, the symptoms of insomnia, snoring, awakenings were taken into consideration. It was thus documented that those who have good quality rest have a 29% lower risk of atrial fibrillation than those with disturbed sleep.
Atrial fibrillation is the most frequent arrhythmia of clinical relevance that mainly affects an elderly population but can also occur in younger women and men. Especially if they are carriers of cardiovascular diseases. And the possibility of developing bradyarrhythmias (such as conduction blocks) is even reduced by more than 35%.
The clinical importance of atrial fibrillation is due to the fact that it is one of the most important risk factors for stroke. Every year in our country, cerebral stroke affects 200,000 people with devastating consequences both for the duration and for the quality of life.
Atrial fibrillation in young people is relatively infrequent. However, there are behaviors and lifestyle habits that can significantly increase the risk.
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Hidetaka Itoh and his working group of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Tokyo have studied this problem in a population of about 300,000 subjects between the ages of 20 and 39 with no evidence of heart or lung disease, and have highlighted which are the risk factors that, in a decidedly older age, can favor the development of atrial fibrillation.
The research, recently published in the American Journal of Cardiology, took into consideration numerous risk factors, such as diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, alcohol, obesity.
The subjects were followed for a period of nearly three years, and in this period 267 developed episodes of atrial fibrillation. A large waist circumference, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and poor sleep quality have been shown to be prone to atrial fibrillation.
* Professor of Cardiology
Catholic University of Rome
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