Insomnia could up heart attack risk

If you are having trouble sleeping, you could also have a moderately higher risk of having a heart attack.

A new study has found that the risk of heart attack in people with insomnia ranged from 27 percent to 45 percent greater than for people who rarely experienced trouble sleeping.

The researchers found that people who had trouble falling asleep almost daily in the last one month had a 45 percent higher heart attack risk.

Those who had problems staying asleep almost every night in the last one month had a 30 percent higher heart attack risk, and who didn’t wake up feeling refreshed in the morning more than once a week had a 27 percent higher heart attack risk.

The study was based on 52,610 Norwegian adults who answered questions about insomnia as part of a national health survey in 1995-97.

“Sleep problems are common and fairly easy to treat,” said Lars Erik Laugsand, M.D., lead researcher and internist from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Public Health in Trondheim.

“So it’s important that people are aware of this connection between insomnia and heart attack and talk to their doctor if they’re having symptoms,” Erik Laugsand stated.

Heart attack risk also increases with each additional insomnia symptom, researchers said.

The study was reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.