Healthy sleep pattern confers survival benefits on diabetic patients

Among patients with diabetes, those who adhere to a healthy sleep pattern are at lower risks of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality, a recent study has found.

Researchers used data from the UK Biobank and included 12,770 individuals. They characterized sleep patterns using a combination of five sleep behaviours, such as chronotype (morning and evening), sleep duration (short <7 h/d, recommended 7–8 h/d, and prolonged >8 h/d), snoring, insomnia, and excessive daytime sleepiness.

The association of sleep patterns with cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease and stroke, among individuals with diabetes was analysed using the competing risk models. Meanwhile, the flexible parametric Royston-Parmar proportion-hazard models were applied to estimate the relationship between sleep patterns and all-cause mortality risk.

During the study period, there were 2,627 cardiovascular disease events, including 1,999 coronary heart disease and 903 stroke events, and 1,576 all-cause deaths.

Analysis showed that relative to participants who had poor sleep pattern, those with healthy sleep pattern had a 24-percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease (p<0.001), a 26-percent lower risk of coronary heart disease (p=0.001), a 25-percent lower risk of stroke (p=0.036), and a 21-percent lower risk of all-cause mortality (p=0.020).

The findings underscore the potential importance of overall sleep behaviours in the prevention of heart failure.