The new findings show that insomniacs may have more problems in the future, with an association between insomnia and serious medical conditions, such as stroke.
A new study reported that the association was strongest in participants younger than 50, with those with five to eight insomnia-related symptoms four times as likely to have a stroke.
The team said their findings, published in the journal Neurology, suggest that improving sleep quality through therapies could help reduce this risk.
“There are many therapies that can help people improve the quality of their sleep, so identifying sleep problems that lead to an increased risk of stroke may help,” said study author Andemi Sawadogo, of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. Early treatment or behavioral therapies that lower the risk of stroke later in life.
The research included more than 31,000 participants, with an average age of 61, who had no history of stroke at the start of the study and were followed for an average of 9 years.
Participants were asked how often they had difficulty falling asleep, whether they woke up during the night regularly, whether they had difficulty waking up too early and not being able to get back to sleep, and how often they felt rested in the morning.
The researchers say they adjusted for factors that can influence stroke risk, such as alcohol use, smoking and level of physical activity.
They added that people with five to eight symptoms of insomnia had a 51 percent increased risk of having a stroke.
They showed that participants under the age of 50 who experienced five to eight symptoms had a nearly 4-fold increased risk of stroke compared to people without symptoms.
Sawadogo noted that managing symptoms of insomnia at a younger age may be an effective stroke prevention strategy.
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