Research shows that people who catch up on sleep on weekends can reduce their risk of heart disease by 20%.
Data from over 90,000 people in the UK suggests that compensating for sleep deprivation during the week with extra naps at the weekend can reduce the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
The findings, presented at the 2024 European Society of Cardiology congress, showed that sleep-deprived people who did most of their ‘catch-up’ sleep at weekends had a one-fifth reduction in their risk of heart disease compared with people who slept no sleep at all or slept even less at weekends.
Study author Yanjun Song, of China’s National Centre for Cardiovascular Diseases at Fuwai Hospital in Beijing, said: “Adequate compensatory sleep is linked to a lower risk of heart disease. The association is even more pronounced in individuals who regularly experience insufficient sleep on weekdays.”
The researchers looked at self-reported data from 90,903 people who are part of the UK Biobank project, which tracks medical and lifestyle data on half a million individuals. Of these, 19,816 met the criteria for sleep deprivation.
Hospital records and information on causes of death were used to identify individuals suffering from heart disease, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, and stroke.
Over a 14-year follow-up period, the team found that people with the most extra sleep (ranging from 1.28 to 16.06 hours of extra sleep on weekends) were 19 percent less likely to develop heart disease than those with the least amount of compensatory sleep (ranging from 16.05 hours of loss to 0.26 hours of loss on weekends).
In a subgroup of people with daily sleep deprivation, those with the most compensatory sleep were 20 percent less likely to develop heart disease than those with the least sleep, the researchers found.
Zechen Liu, co-author of the study and also of the National Centre for Cardiovascular Disease, said: “Our results show that for the significant proportion of the population in modern society that suffers from sleep deprivation, those who get the most ‘catch-up’ sleep on the weekend have significantly lower rates of heart disease than those with the least.”
Prof James Leiper, deputy medical director at the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved in the research, said: “Many of us don’t get enough sleep because of work or family commitments. And while sleeping in at the weekend is no substitute for a good night’s sleep, this large study suggests it could help reduce the risk of heart disease.
“We know that sleep deprivation can impact our overall wellbeing, and this research is an important reminder of how important it is to try to get at least seven hours of sleep every night. We look forward to future studies to better understand how sleep patterns can impact the heart and how we can adapt modern lifestyles to improve our health.”