Proper Sleep May Help Clear Arteries

December 23 (HealthDay News) -- A good night's sleep may be just what your arteries need.

So finds a new five-year study in which middle-aged people who had an extra hour of sleep each night were less likely to have artery-stiffening calcium deposits.

But the study results shouldn't send people off to bed prematurely or have them popping sleeping pills, cautioned Diane Lauderdale, associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago Medical Center, who led the study.

"We don't know why there is an association," Lauderdale said. "And until we know why, we can't tell whether it is a causal association."

The report was published in the Dec. 24/31 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Lauderdale and her colleagues have been following a group of young adults for years, studying their heart arteries from a number of angles. The latest report linked the sleeping habits of 495 participants, ages 35 to 47, with the incidence of artery calcification, measured by CT scans.

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