AHA 2025 Statement on Sleep and Heart Health: Highlighted in AHA News in July 2025. Published in Circulation (Mid-Summer 2025)
AHA 2025 Statement on Sleep and Heart Health: Highlighted in AHA News in July 2025. Published in Circulation (Mid-Summer 2025)
Key Findings:
1. Sleep quality is as important as sleep duration in maintaining cardiovascular and brain health.
2. The AHA recognizes sleep duration as one of the “Life’s Essential 8” metrics for ideal heart and brain health.
3. Suboptimal sleep (not just short sleep) is linked to:
• Increased risk of cardiovascular disease
• Cognitive decline
• Depression
• Obesity
• Elevated blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol
Components of Healthy Sleep Beyond Duration:
1. Continuity – Time to fall asleep, nighttime awakenings, unplanned early wake-ups, sleep apnea.
• Linked to ↑ risk of AFib, heart attacks, hypertension, and insulin resistance.
2. Timing – Usual sleep onset time (e.g., midnight or later).
• Later sleep timing linked to ↑ risk of obesity, insulin resistance, and high blood pressure.
3. Satisfaction – Self-reported quality of sleep.
• Poor satisfaction associated with ↑ risk of coronary artery disease and arterial stiffness.
4. Regularity – Consistency of sleep-wake patterns.
• Irregular patterns increase risk of inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and obesity.
5. Daytime Functioning – Sleepiness and alertness during the day.
• Excessive daytime sleepiness correlated with higher cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.
6. Sleep architecture affects CVS , which refers to how your sleep moves between light and deep stages.
• Interruptions – in different stages results in fragmented irregular sleep , lower satisfaction and more sleep-related disorders that can affect your heart in different ways.
• Over 300 studies confirm that lower socioeconomic status is consistently associated with poorer sleep outcomes.
Clinical Implications:
• Sleep evaluation should go beyond hours slept and include:
• Satisfaction
• Timing
• Continuity
• Regularity
• Impact on daytime functioning
• Patients experiencing new or worsening sleep issues should not dismiss them as aging-related and should seek medical evaluation.
Final Recommendation:
“People should pay as much attention to how they sleep as they do to other critical aspects of health and well-being.”
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