While it is very important to sleep, a new study, published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, has revealed that sleeping less than six hours during the night or even sleeping poorly can lead to heart disease. In order to arrive at the result, accelerometers were attached to the waists of 3,974 healthy men and women by the researchers. This was done for over seven nights in order to examine the duration and the quality of the sleep.

According to the report in The New York Times that quotes this study, all these men and women underwent the three-dimensional ultrasound that keeps a check on the blood flow through the blood vessels, and other physical exams. Factors like diabetes, smoking, fasting glucose and cholesterol were controlled and it was deduced that those who slept for less than six hours were 27 per cent more vulnerable to suffer from heart problems. Those who slept fitfully or moved a bit are also more susceptible to have more accumulations of plaque as compared to those who slept soundly.

“We’re detecting disease in its earliest stages in apparently healthy young people,” Dr Valentin Fuster, co-author and director of the Mount Sinai Heart Center said. “This is something that was done only at autopsy until now. This is an alarm system, telling you that there is another cardiovascular risk factor you should pay attention to.”