Sleeping Problems Disturb Cardiovascular Health

Timing is a key principle of health. Sleeping and waking are timed to the earth's 24 hour clock, and so is the health of your circulatory system. New research¹ is discovering that timing rhythms of your body have a powerful influence on the health of the cells that line your circulatory system.

Just as you know you feel better when you are in sync and clicking along, so it is that your blood vessels relax and repair themselves more efficiently when you feel this way. Of course, you must sleep well in order to be in this condition for any number of hours during the day. This information means that shift workers may also be placing a specific form of stress on their cardiovascular system (in addition to any of the other more known types of cardio stressors).

“Having a bad or broken clock seems to promote vascular disease,” says Dr. Daniel Rudic, vascular biologist in the MCG Schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies and the study's corresponding author.

Our bodies are elegantly timed when in a state of health. Scientists are now discovering numerous clocking systems, not only in your brain but also in various cells of your body. If a system gets out of beat with another system than health issues can develop. The researchers found that when these clocking systems break down then the vascular system makes less friendly nitric oxide and thus your circulation cannot relax as easily. Experimentally, scientists showed in mice that this problem aggressively deteriorates healthy vascular function and directly leads to clot formation in older mice.

Getting yourself in a healthy rhythm and pattern will help you live longer and happier. Remember, when you eat is as important as what you eat – a key timing principle of the Leptin Diet. Getting to sleep on time and sleeping well is very important to your health.