restores the heart after a heart attack

People who don’t get enough sleep after a heart attack are twice as likely to have another heart attack in the next two years than those who sleep well, according to a study conducted at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. heart

The results, which are presented today in the journal Natureindicate that advice given to patients should place greater emphasis on sleep hygiene. Additionally, the study authors add, hospitals should consider sleep as part of treatment, especially in intensive care units where there is no culture of protecting patients’ sleep.

“We have shown that sleep limits harmful inflammation in the heart and is an important part of treatment. “Clinical practice needs to be tailored to ensure patients get adequate rest,” he says. Vanguard Cameron McAlpine, director of the investigation. “Clinicians should prioritize sleep in all patients following a cardiovascular event.”

Insufficient sleep increases blood pressure, promotes inflammation, and increases the risk of diabetes and obesity.

Previous studies have shown that too little sleep increases blood pressure, promotes inflammation in the body, affects glucose regulation, and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and obesity—all factors that harm cardiovascular health in healthy people. New research shows that the benefits of sleep are even greater in the days following a heart attack.

McAlpine, an expert on the connection between the brain and other organs through the immune system, has shown that the need for sleep increases when you have had a heart attack. And this sleep helps restore the heart. He explains this by saying that when the brain detects damage to the body, it increases sleep time to promote healing. The same phenomenon explains why you feel the need to rest when you are sick for other reasons.

Hospitals should protect patients’ sleep as part of treatment, researchers say

Through experiments on mice, a team at Mount Sinai Hospital discovered how this mechanism of recovery after a heart attack works. In particular, a type of immune cell called monocytes travels from the blood into the brain in large numbers; monocytes cause the activation of neurons in the thalamus, a structure located in the center of the brain; This will triple the time spent in slow wave sleep, which is a state of deep sleep, and increase your total sleep time. In mice, this sleep induction phenomenon begins immediately after infarction and lasts for about a week.

In subsequent experiments, also with mice that had suffered a heart attack, the researchers showed that sleep deprivation keeps the heart under stress. In contrast, when mice can sleep as many hours as they need, inflammation decreases and heart recovery improves.

“This study is the first to show that the heart regulates sleep when it is damaged by using the immune system to send signals to the brain,” says McAlpine. “Brain recruitment of immune cells and neuroinflammation after myocardial infarction is a beneficial adaptive response to heal the heart.”

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Joseph Corbella