Lack of sleep boosts heart attack risk

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Getting a good night’s sleep plays a significant role in protecting you from heart attacks, according to a study involving 500,000 people. For the first time, it provides strong evidence that too little sleep (less than six hours) over a period of years causes your risk of heart attack to rise substantially. On the flipside, if you are genetically predisposed to heart attack, good sleep hygiene can reduce that risk. Sleeping between seven to nine hours a night is doctors’ recommendation. The findings come from a collaboration between the University of Colorado Boulder, Harvard Medical School and the University of Manchester. Sian Griffiths reports from Ottawa on a new approach to helping people with extreme alcohol addiction, slowly coming off booze in a medically managed way while addressing their underlying mental health problems. Claudia talks to orthopaedic surgeon Chloe Scott at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in Scotland about her study of ‘Worse than Death’ pain that patients waiting for hip and knee replacement surgery have to endure. Family doctor Graham Easton joins Claudia to talk about the British teenage boy who became blind because of a long term diet of snacks and processed food, a study of alternate day fasting for weight loss, and the benefits or otherwise of drinking several glasses of warm water first thing in the morning. (Photo: Woman yawning while lying in bed. Credit: Getty Images) Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker