Occasional daytime napping may be linked to a healthy heart

PanARMENIAN.Net - Some good news for nap fanatics -- a new study has found that a daytime nap taken once or twice a week could lower the risk of heart attacks or strokes, CNN reports.

Researchers from the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland studied the association between napping frequency and duration and the risk of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease complications.

Tracking 3,462 people between the ages of 35 and 75 for just over five years, the report authors found that those who indulged in occasional napping -- once or twice a week, for between five minutes to an hour -- were 48% less likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke or heart failure than those who did not nap at all.

The observational study, which was published in Heart, the journal of the British Cardiovascular Society, found that no such association emerged for greater frequency or duration of naps.

While some studies have been done on the impact of napping on heart health, many published studies fail to consider napping frequency or duration, the researchers said.

"Subjects who nap once or twice per week have a lower risk of incident CVD (cardiovascular disease) events, while no association was found for more frequent napping or napping duration," the report authors said.

"Sleep patterns have previously been reported to be associated with a range of chronic medical conditions," said Stephen MacMahon, a cardiovascular expert at Oxford University's George Institute for Global Health, who was not involved in the study.