Improving one’s sleep health is something everyone can do to improve their cardiovascular health
DALLAS - People who reported getting regular, uninterrupted sleep did a better job sticking to their exercise and diet plans while trying to lose weight, according to preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2023. The meeting will be held in Boston, February 28-March 3, 2023, and offers the latest science on population-based health and wellness and implications for lifestyle and cardiometabolic health.
"Focusing on obtaining good sleep — seven to nine hours at night with a regular wake time along with waking refreshed and being alert throughout the day — may be an important behavior that helps people stick with their physical activity and dietary modification goals," said Christopher E. Kline, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of health and human development at the University of Pittsburgh. "A previous study of ours reported that better sleep health was associated with a significantly greater loss of body weight and fat among participants in a year-long, behavioral weight loss program."
The researchers examined whether good sleep health was related to how well people adhered to the various lifestyle modifications prescribed in a 12-month weight loss program. The weight-loss program included 125 adults (average age of 50 years, 91% female, 81% white) who met criteria for overweight or obesity (body mass index of 27-44) without any medical conditions requiring medical supervision of their diet or physical activity.
Sleep habits were measured at the beginning of the program, at 6 months and at 12 months, through patient questionnaires, a sleep diary and 7-day readings from a wrist-worn device that recorded sleep, waking activity and rest. These measures were used to score each participant as "good" or "poor" on six measures of sleep: regularity; satisfaction; alertness; timing; efficiency (the percentage of time spent in bed when actually asleep); and duration. A composite sleep health score of 0-6 was calculated for each participant, with one point for each "good" measure of sleep health, with higher scores indicating better levels of sleep health.
Adherence to the weight loss program was measured by percentage of group intervention sessions attended; percentage of days in which each participant ate between 85-115% of their recommended daily calories; and change in daily duration of moderate or vigorous physical activity. Participants had an average sleep health score of 4.5 out of 6 at the start of the study, at 6 months and at 12 months. Participants self-reported their caloric intake each day using a phone app and researchers measured participants’ physical activity with an accelerometer worn at the waist for one week at a time at the start of the study, at 6 months and at 12 months.
After adjusting the sleep health scores for age, gender, race and whether or not there was a partner sharing the bed, the researchers found that better sleep health was associated with higher rates of attendance at group interval sessions, adherence to caloric intake goals and improvement in time spent performing moderate-vigorous physical activity. They found:
Participants attended 79% of group sessions in the first six months and 62% of group sessions in the second six months.
Participants met their daily caloric intake goals on 36% of days in the first six months and 21% in the second six months.
Participants increased their total daily time spent in moderate-vigorous activity by 8.7 minutes in the first six months, however, their total time spent decreased by 3.7 minutes in the second six months.
The decrease in group session attendance, caloric intake and in time spent in moderate-vigorous activity in the second six months was expected, Kline said. "As one continues in a long-term behavioral weight loss intervention, it’s normal for the adherence to weight loss behaviors to decrease," he said.
Additionally, while there was an association between better sleep health scores and an increase in physical activity, it was not strong enough to be statistically significant, meaning that researchers cannot rule out that the results were due to chance.
"We had hypothesized that sleep would be associated with lifestyle modification; however, we didn’t expect to see an association between sleep health and all three of our measures of lifestyle modification," he said. "Although we did not intervene on sleep health in this study, these results suggest that optimizing sleep may lead to better lifestyle modification adherence. "
The study’s limitations include that it did not incorporate any intervention to help participants improve their sleep, that the study sample was not recruited based upon participants’ sleep health characteristics, and that the overall sample population had relatively good sleep health at baseline. The sample was also primarily white and female, so it is unclear whether these results are generalizable to more diverse populations.
"One question of interest for future research is whether we can increase adherence to lifestyle modifications – and, ultimately, increase weight loss – if we improve a person’s sleep health," Kline said.
A second question for the researchers is how such an intervention would be timed to improve sleep.
"It remains unclear whether it would be best to optimize sleep prior to rather than during attempted weight loss. In other words, should clinicians tell their patients to focus on getting better and more regular sleep before they begin to attempt weight loss, or should they try to improve their sleep while at the same time modifying their diet and activity levels?" Kline said.
Improving one’s sleep health is something everyone can do to improve their cardiovascular health and is a key component of the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8. Sleep was added in 2022 as the eighth component of optimal cardiovascular health, which includes eating healthy food, being physically active, not smoking, getting enough sleep, maintaining a healthy weight and controlling cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure levels. Cardiovascular disease claims more lives each year in the U.S. than all forms of cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease combined, according to the 2023 Statistical Update from the American Heart Association.
"There are over 100 studies linking sleep to weight gain and obesity, but this was a great example showing how sleep isn't just tied to weight itself, it's tied to the things we're doing to help manage our own weight. This could be because sleep impacts the things that drive hunger and cravings, your metabolism and your ability to regulate metabolism and the ability to make healthy choices in general," said Michael A. Grandner, Ph.D., MTR. Grandner is director of the Sleep and Heath Research Program at the University of Arizona, director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, and was a co-author of the Association’s Life’s Essential 8 cardiovascular health score. "Studies like this really go to show that all of these things are connected, and sometimes sleep is the thing that we can start taking control over that can help open doors to other avenues of health."
TOLONO - Unity Junior High School announced the 8th grade recipients achieving Honor Roll and High Honor Roll status for their academic performance during the third quarter. Congratulations to all the students who earned the requisite grade point average to celebrate the honor.
Honesty is not always the easiest path but it’s usually the most loving path.
Let’s say you have a loved one or friend who is diabetic but they eat crazy stuff every day from pizza to cookies to soda pop without regard for personal health. Is it best for you to treat them to treats containing white flour and sugar every chance you can or to have a talk with them? Of course, you run the risk of hurting feelings or making the person angry but chances are they are going to die sooner than they should. It’s best to try to save the person’s life by being honest. You don’t have to cut the person’s head off with a verbal assault or face slapping rhetoric.
Love doesn’t attack people. You shouldn’t get preachy because this runs most people away. Simply preface your remarks by saying, “I’m your friend. I care about you and your life. I want you to live a long time. However, if you don’t stop eating what you eat all the time you are probably going to shorten your life.” This could pertain to any negative activity or addiction.
Having serious conversations with people is not easy. We are all busy. We aren’t close enough to most people to be this direct. Plus, we really have to care a lot about someone to be lovingly honest. We run the risk of the friendship becoming strained or evenly totally severed. The bottom line is do you care enough to be honest? Plus, don’t ever start making life recommendations to someone unless you truly love the person and are willing to help the individual work through the issues.
It’s easier to let people continue on their negative path to self destruction. Fast food and unhealthy food items are unfortunately much more affordable. It’s not cheap to eat healthy. It’s not cheap to be sick either. Medical bills can pile up quickly. Trips to the doctor are expensive. Diabetic medications are expensive. Kidney issues result in dealth for many Americans every year. Funerals are expensive. Giving up a good friend or family member is life changing.
Disease happens to us all in some way. These bodies are very vulnerable to cancer, diabetes and so on.
Chances are you may have tried. Most likely you have talked your head off to someone you love but they continue in their negative behavior. It seems many people under 50 can’t fathom sickness or death. The consequences of their behavior seem remote or even impossible. Thus they continue on their way.
Of course we all have to look in the mirror. We all wrestle with our private and public demons. Most of us know we aren’t perfect and if we take a serious inventory of our lives and habits we realize we all come away short of perfection, this is especially true of me. I have lots of personal work to do and it’s all I can do to try to do my own daily diagnosis and repair work. This is why we don’t take the time to try to help others; we have enough problems of our own.
Therefore, this is why you have to really care a lot about someone to take the time to try to help the person.
If you had the gift of premonition and could keep someone from being killed in an accident you wouldn’t hesitate to speak with them about it. So, why, if you can help someone address personal issues/addictions that might be deadly, wouldn’t you try? Unfortunately, addictions and mental illnesses are issues that people seem to be afraid to address. If someone you love was inside a burning building, most of us would risk our own lives to rush in and save them.
Why is it so hard to risk hurt feelings to save a life?
Reports show that the median Illinois household has a tax liability of $9,500, while Chicago's debt per taxpayer is almost $42,000. 
