Dr. Policastro
The “news media” is in the business of selling information for money. Therefore, catchy headlines are necessary. I wrote the article below last week. The following day I saw a headline that read: “Scientists say going to bed at this time increases risk of heart attack and stroke.”
Chronotype is an unusual word. It refers to an individual’s wake-sleep cycle. The morning chronotype person goes to sleep early and wakes up early. The evening chronotype person goes to bed late and sleeps in late.
A recent study in the Journal of the American Heart Association looked at chronotypes and their relation to heart disease. The study was conducted in the United Kingdom.
They looked at about 325,000 adults from ages 39 to 74. None of them had a history of heart disease. They followed them for about 14 years. They looked at cardiovascular disease that developed in that period.
About 11,000 heart attacks and 7,200 strokes occurred in the group during that period. They then looked at the chronotypes for the individuals who suffered cardiac events.
They looked specifically at the middle aged and older adults. About 30 percent of them had a morning chronotype. Another 10 percent had an evening chronotype. The remaining 60 percent fell somewhere in between with what was called an intermediate chronotype.
We also know that there are a number of factors affected by having the wrong chronotype. The evening chronotype affects a number of those adversely. People who have an evening chronotype do not line up well with things like work schedules that have a higher incidence of risky cardiovascular behaviors.
They are more likely to have irregular sleep patterns. They are more likely to have a poor diet. They are more likely to have heavy drinking. They are more likely to be cigarette smokers.
There are also metabolic patterns that are thrown off by this behavior. It might affect blood pressure. It might affect blood sugar. It might affect cholesterol levels.There is also added stress related to mismatched schedules. They may develop depression. They may develop anxiety.
The study ultimately found that the chronotype itself was not the most important indicator of cardiovascular health. It was more related to the associated symptoms that the evening chronotype individuals developed.
It was no surprise that the highest risk factor was cigarette smoking itself. It just so happened that the evening chronotype individual was more likely to smoke.
The bottom line is that if you have an evening chronotype, you need to pay attention to what other habits you develop. You are more likely to develop those bad habits, so you just need to be careful about doing so.
The final conclusion of the newspaper article was “sticking to heart healthy habits like getting good sleep can substantially reduce or eliminate the risk associated with the night owl sleep schedule. Bottom line is that you need to pay attention to what other habits you develop. Gee, I said the same thing in the last paragraph.
Nowhere in the article did it mention what “going to bed at this time” actually was. That is probably more than you ever wanted to know about the unusual word chronotype.