Open AccessBroken sleep predicts hardened blood vessels
Author(s) -
Raphaël Vallat,
Vyoma D. Shah,
Susan Redline,
Peter Attia,
Matthew P. Walker
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.127
H-Index - 271
eISSN - 1545-7885
pISSN - 1544-9173
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000726
Subject(s) - biology , sleep (system call) , sleep quality , inflammation , immunology , bioinformatics , neuroscience , cognition , computer science , operating system
Why does poor-quality sleep lead to atherosclerosis? In a diverse sample of over 1,600 individuals, we describe a pathway wherein sleep fragmentation raises inflammatory-related white blood cell counts (neutrophils and monocytes), thereby increasing atherosclerosis severity, even when other common risk factors have been accounted for. Improving sleep quality may thus represent one preventive strategy for lowering inflammatory status and thus atherosclerosis risk, reinforcing public health policies focused on sleep health.