A Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography Study: Cardiac Effect of Sleep Duration

EFFECT OF SLEEP DURATION ON HEART

Abstract

Objective: Sleep is a complex event involving various physiological processes. Recent studies during the last few years have shed light on the effects of sleep duration on health. We investigated the cardiac effect of sleep duration on speckle tracking echocardiography.We divided the patients into 2 groups who slept more or less than 7 hours and evaluated all of them with echocardiography

Methods: This study was a retrospective study that was conducted to investigate the cardiac effects of sleep deprivation. Between June 2021 and February 2022, 129 individuals who admitted to our hospital for routine check up with no known chronic disease and with normal and good quality echocardiographic examination were included in the study.The patients who were eligible for the study design were called by the investigator to obtain information on average sleep duration and two groups were defined by the self-reported sleep duration (≤7 h , >7 h per day) were used in the statistical analyses.

Results: Totally 129 patients ( ≤7 h(n= 80 ), >7 h (n= 49)  per day) were enrolled in this study. All echocardiographic parameters were compared with sleep duration. Among these parameters, left ventricular global longitudinal strain was found to be greater in the group who slept less. (-21,5 ± 2,6 vs. -20,3 ± 2,2 p 0,005) However, being withing normal limits, left ventricular end diastolic diameter and right heart chambers were found to be more enlarged in those who slept 7 hours or less than 7 hours. It was also observed that the right atrial volume was higher in the less sleeper group

Conclusion: As a result, global longitudinal strain, which is one of the parameters showing left ventricular function, was found to be less in healthy people with a sleep time above a certain period, and we think that this may be a hypothesis to explain the relationship of long sleep time with cardiovascular events.