Catching up on sleep on the weekends has been linked to a 20 percent lower risk of developing heart disease.
A UK Biobank study of more than 90,000 people over 14 years showed that sleep deprived people who caught up the most sleep on the weekends had the lowest heart disease risk.
Inadequate sleep, particularly on weekdays, is byproduct of busy lifestyles. There have been mixed reports in the past on whether lost sleep can be successfully caught up later.
Study co-author Yanjun Song, of the State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Centre for Cardiovascular Disease in Beijing, said the association between catch-up sleep and lower heart disease became even more pronounced among individuals who regularly experienced inadequate sleep on weekdays.
The research, presented at ESC Congress 2024, showed that people who caught up on their sleep by sleeping in on weekends may see their risk of heart disease fall by one-fifth.
“It is well known that people who suffer sleep deprivation ‘sleep in’ on days off to mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation,” the study report said.
“However, there is a lack of research on whether this compensatory sleep helps heart health.”
For the study, sleep deprivation was self-reported, with those self-reporting less than seven hours sleep per night defined as having sleep deprivation.
Hospitalisation records and cause of death registry information were used to diagnose various cardiac diseases including ischaemic heart disease (IHD), heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF), and stroke.
The full report is on the European Society of Cardiology website
