To Help Heart Health, Treat Sleep Issues Sooner Than Later

Indeed, compared to people with no sleep disorders, they had more than double the risk of developing high blood pressure and more than quadruple the risk of developing heart disease. While the study can’t establish why these correlations exist, the results add to the evidence that sleep has a role in maintaining our long-term health.

This study draws on a vast database of medical records of post-9/11 U.S. veterans who receive health care through the Department of Veteran Affairs, or VA. This information was promising material for probing the link between sleep disorders and the heart, says Allison Gaffey, a clinical health psychologist at the Yale School of Medicine and an author of the new paper. “We know that veterans have higher rates of sleep disorders” than the general population, she says. “This is driven by a variety of factors, including deployment-related stress, irregular sleep schedules, psychiatric comorbidities such as PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and then also physical injuries and chronic pain.” What’s more, veterans also have higher rates of heart disease, raising the question of whether dealing with the sleep problems might bring those numbers down.