Associations between sleep duration and prevalence of cardiovascular events

Data regarding the associations between sleep duration and clinical cardiovascular (CV) events are limited. We aimed to analyze any associations between self-reported sleep duration and CV events.

This is a cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative population of noninstitutionalized US civilians recruited in the 2007 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. This is a questionnaire-based study including only those subjects who answered questions on sleep duration and CV events. The main outcome measures were prevalence of congestive heart failure, myocardial infarction, stroke, coronary artery disease, and angina.

After logistic regression analysis, significant associations between sleep duration and prevalence of stroke, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, and angina were found. There was a statistically significant increase in stroke in those with <6 hours of sleep (odds ratio [OR]: 2.0111, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.4356-2.8174), in myocardial infarction in those with <6 hours of sleep (OR: 2.0489, 95% CI: 1.4878-2.8216), in congestive heart failure in those with <6 hours of sleep (OR: 1.6702, 95% CI: 1.1555 to 2.4142), in coronary artery disease in those with >8 hours of sleep (OR: 1.1914, 95% CI: 1.0712-3.4231), and in angina in those with >8 hours of sleep (OR: 2.0717, 95% CI: 1.0497-4.0887).

The results of this cross-sectional analysis suggest that sleep duration may be associated with the prevalence of various CV events.