risk of peripheral arterial disease increases with less sleep, study says

8,000 canadians suffer from peripheral arterial disease (pad), a condition in which clogged leg arteries impede the flow of blood and raise the risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack.

by dave yasvinski

published mar 21, 2023

last updated apr 12, 2023

3 minute read

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3 minute read

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800,000 canadians have peripheral arterial disease

study finds that sleeping seven to eight hours a night lowers the risk of peripheral arterial disease. getty

sleeping less than five hours a night doesn’t just slow you down, it might even stop your blood from getting where it needs to go. a new study, published in european heart journal — open, found that getting less than five hours of shut-eye a night — compared to the recommended seven to eight hours — may significantly raise the risk of developing peripheral artery disease (pad). more than 200 million people around the world, including around 800,000 canadians, suffer from pad, a condition in which clogged leg arteries impede the flow of blood and raise the risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack.

“our study suggests that sleeping for seven to eight hours a night is a good habit for lowering the risk of pad,“ said shuai yuan, author of the study from the karolinska institute in stockholm, sweden. “insufficient nighttime sleep and daytime napping have previously been associated with a raised risk of coronary artery disease which, like pad, is caused by clogged arteries.

“in addition, sleeping problems are among the top ranked complaints in pad patients. there are limited data on the impact of sleep habits on pad and vice versa and our study aimed to fill that gap.”

to this end, researchers tapped into a pool of more than 650,000 patients and sought to ascertain the associations of sleep duration and daytime napping with the risk of developing pad. they relied on genetic data and mendelian randomization to help them determine the relationships between these variables.

“observational analyses are limited by reverse causality — meaning that if an association between sleep habits and pad is found, we cannot be certain if sleep habits caused pad or having pad caused the sleep habits,” yuan said. “mendelian randomization is a robust method for evaluating causality and provides more certainty about the results.”

less than five hours of sleep, nearly double the risk of pad

according to their observational analysis, the strongest causal relationship exists between short sleep and pad, where the relationship goes both ways. they found that the 53,416 adults in the study who slept less than five hours per night had nearly double the risk of pad compared to those who obtained a solid seven to eight hours of rest. further analysis involving subject pools of 156,582 and 452, 028 people supported this finding.

because the relationship goes both ways, pad was also associated with an increased likelihood of a short night’s sleep. “the results indicate that brief nighttime sleep can raise the chance of developing pad and that having pad increases the risk of getting insufficient sleep,” said yuan.

when the team performed an observational analysis of long sleep (defined as eight or more hours per night), they found that the 53,416 adults they looked at had a 24 per cent greater risk of pad compared to those getting to seven to eight hours of nightly rest. the finding was supported in two other population samples, but no causal relationship was found the two variables.

similar results were found when they looked at participants who tended nap during the day: daytime nappers had a 32 per cent higher risk of pad compared to non-nappers but no causal relationship was found.

“more studies are needed on the relationships between lengthy nighttime sleep, daytime napping and pad,” yuan said. “although we found associations in the observational studies, we could not confirm causality.”

“more research is needed on how to interrupt the bidirectional link between short sleep and pad. lifestyle changes that help people get more sleep, such as being physically active, may lower the risk of developing pad. for patients with pad, optimizing pain management could enable them to have a good night’s sleep.”

dave yasvinski is a writer with healthing.ca

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