Study: Insomnia Linked To Heart Disease Deaths In Men

As if it weren't bad enough that insomnia in and of itself can be torture. New research just out in the journal Circulation suggests that insomnia may increase a man's chances of dying from heart disease — though just modestly.

The study adds yet another incentive for the estimated one-third of Americans who suffer from insomnia to work on sleeping better. It comes on the heels of other findings that curing your insomnia could double your chances of recovery from depression.

From the Brigham and Women's Hospital press release on the Circulation study:

“Insomnia is a common health issue, particularly in older adults, but the link between this common sleep disorder and its impact on the risk of death has been unclear,” said Yanping Li, PhD, a research fellow in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at BWH and lead author of the paper. “Our research shows that among men who experience specific symptoms of insomnia, there is a modest increase risk in death from cardiovascular-related issues.”

Specifically, researchers report that difficulty falling sleep and non-restorative sleep were both associated with a higher risk of mortality, particularly mortality related to cardiovascular disease.

Researchers followed more than 23,000 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study who self-reported insomnia symptoms for a period of six years. Beginning in 2004 through 2010, researchers documented 2025 deaths using information from government and family sources. After adjusting for lifestyle factors, age and other chronic conditions, researchers found that men who reported difficulty initiating sleep and non-restorative sleep had a 55 percent and 32 percent increased risk of CVD-related mortality over the six year follow up, respectively, when compared to men who did not report these insomnia-related symptoms.