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Eight hours is a commonly accepted norm for a good, healthful night’s sleep. Japanese researchers assessed whether sleeping less was associated with incident cardiovascular disease (CVD; stroke, myocardial infarction, and sudden cardiac death). They followed more than 1200 hypertensive people (mean age, 70) for a mean of 4 years. Awake and sleep times were self-reported during 24 hours of ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring; short sleep duration was defined as <7.5 hours (the lowest quintile).
After adjustments for multiple risk factors, short sleep duration was associated with an elevated risk for incident CVD (hazard ratio, 1.59). A synergistic association was found between short sleep duration and a riser pattern of BP, defined as m…