Sleeping less and sleeping too much can increase the risk of heart disease

Sleeping habits has been a major topic linking to different diseases. New findings have shown that a person who sleeps less than 4 hours and more than 8 hours has a greater risk of dying early because of heart disease.

According to News Medical, Norwegian and Taiwanese researchers said that people could die due to different types of coronary heart diseases like unstable angina pectoris and heart attacks. Lean Beate Strand at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Department of Public Health and General Practice, who is the lead author of the study, said, "Our results show that enough, but not too much sleep is important for a healthy lifestyle."

In Taiwan, there were 392,164 adult patients who came in for medical checkup from 1998 to 2011. All these patients were asked how long do they sleep at night. Out of the total number of patients, there were 711 who died because of cardiovascular diseases.

Those people who slept less than 4 hours at night had a 50 percent greater risk of having heart disease. There is no definite explanation why heart disease risk is higher in those who sleep less than 4 hours but it is well known that less sleep is linked to cases like high blood pressure, increased heart rate and stress which are all factors of heart diseases.

On the other hand, as posted by Mail Online, people who sleep over 8 hours also have a higher risk of getting heart disease which is 53 percent. The findings have shown mostly women ages over 65 are affected in this study.

However, Strand has explained that the study should be interpreted with caution because this doesn't completely mean it's more risky for all women than men who sleep less than 4 hours and more than 8 hours every night. The recommended sleep duration should be between 4 and 8 hours every night.