Staying Awake May Hurt Your Heart

People who get very little sleep are more likely to have calcium deposits in their arteries. These deposits could increase the risk of heart disease. Researchers studied 495 people who had no calcium in their arteries. For five years, they kept track of how many hours of sleep they got each night. People who got less than five hours of sleep were much more likely to have calcium in their arteries, compared with people who got seven hours of sleep or more. The New York Times wrote about the study December 23. The research appears in the December 24/31 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.