association between sleep duration and electrocardiographic ischemic changes in middle-aged population: isfahan healthy heart program

Background: recent studies examining the association between sleep duration and cardiovascular disease (cvd) showed inconsistent results. the aim of our study was to evaluate the association between self-reported night sleep duration and ischemic changes in electrocardiography (ecg). methods: we conducted this cross-sectional study on 3513 participants from iranian middleaged population as a part of isfahan healthy heart program (ihhp), isfahan, iran. sleep duration was obtained by questioning participants. the frequency of electrocardiographic ischemic changes was calculated using ecg minnesota coding system. results: short sleep duration was associated with increased frequency of electrocardiographic ischemic changes. in a fully adjusted multiple logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio (or) for short sleep duration less than 5 hours per night was 1.501 [95% confidence interval (ci) for or: 1.085-2.076] compared to 8 hours of sleep. after stratifying the study population into sex groups, the association remained significant only in women. the or for short sleep less than 5 hours per night was 1.565 (95% ci for or: 1.052-2.329) and 1.455 (95% ci for or: 0.833-2.539) in women and men, respectively. there was no association between long sleep duration and electrocardiographic ischemic changes in men and women. conclusion: we concluded that there is a positive association between short sleep duration and frequency of electrocardiographic ischemic changes in middle-aged women. this association suggests that short sleep duration may increase the risk of ischemic heart disease (ihd) in women, and this need to be evaluated in further studies.