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A greater emphasis on sleep health is needed to avoid heart attacks and strokes, as new study shows that insomnia is a significant contributor to cardiovascular problems.
It is now known that a major risk factor for cardiovascular illnesses is chronic sleeplessness.
Sleeplessness that bars people from either falling asleep or staying asleep rages across the globe, affecting millions, and its menace to heart health has in recent years been associated with heart attacks and strokes. Hormonal bucking such as cortisol, which results from chronic insomnia, leads to high blood pressure and increased rate. Slowly, these changes add up to atherosclerosis, that is a major cause of cardiovascular incidents. also affects the metabolic rate and predisposes the patient to obesity, diabetes and other ailments that also worsen cardiovascular risks.
They worsen heart health by causing such mental effects as anxiety and depression as a result of insomnia. The practice unhealthy behaviours such as irregular diet and increased alcohol intake is dangerous to individuals having heart problems. This relationship is bidirectional: patients with heart complaints complain of sleep problems and, vice versa, the two become self-perpetuating.
According to the research, there is a link between insomnia and cardiovascular incidents. For instance, a study in the Sleep journal revealed that those who had chronic insomnia are 45% more likely to develop heart diseases and get a stroke. Such findings call for the need to have sleep disorders as a public health intervention programme.
Recommended treatments, including CBTI, enhance the patient’s sleep patterns, minimising potential complications like heart related ones. Further, more recent drugs that work on selective receptors in the brain can comfort insomnia in the short-term without the harms of usual placebos.
The companies of the Indian pharmaceutical industry are working more and more to exit the production of affordable remedies for insomnia and cardiovascular diseases.
However, the pharmaceutical industry is playing a role in reducing of these health risks by encouraging awareness and early detection. Both insomnia and cardiovascular disorders are on the rise in India, and due to associated increased risks of heart attacks and strokes, respectively, both pharmacotherapy and non-pharmacologic strategies need to be employed to address sleep disorders.
(Inputs by By Dr. Aravind Badiger, Technical Director, BDR Pharmaceuticals)
