Harvard research shows new link between sleep and clogged arteries
Researchers have known for some time that poor sleep raises heart disease risk. Now, they’ve found a chemical chain reaction that helps explain that risk, leading from poor sleep to a white blood cell surge that promotes the artery-clogging plaques of cardiovascular disease. The world’s top killer, cardiovascular disease kills 17.7 million worldwide annually, according to figures from the World Health Organization. It has been linked to a number of risk factors, including smoking, a poor diet, and lack of exercise. A less widely known risk is chronically poor sleep, whether short or fragmented, like that experienced by night-shift workers, travelers in the grip of jet lag, and sufferers of sleep apnea and similar conditions. “There are studies that suggest [sleep] can be as potent a driver of the disease as more traditional risk factors, such as smoking or high cholesterol levels,” said Cameron McAlpine, a research fellow in the lab of...