Seven hours bed is ideal
02/08/2010
Seven hours of sleep in bed is the optimum amount of time if you want to avoid cardiovascular disease in the future, new research suggests.
Scientists from the West Virginia School of Medicine found that abnormal sleep duration, whether it was too little time spent on a sofa bed or too many hours spent enjoying a memory foam mattress, can lead to cardiovascular health issues.
The researchers examined data from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey and how this correlated with participants'' likelihood of suffering angina, coronary heart disease, heart attack or stroke.
Sleeping less than five hours per day doubled people''s chances of cardiovascular conditions, while sleeping for more than nine hours also elevated the risk of heart problems.
Anoop Shankar, one of the study''s authors, said; "Our study findings may have important clinical and public health implications, such as screening for changes in sleep duration by primary care physicians as a potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease."
The study comes after research from Silent Night found that one in ten parents get as little two and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep per night.
