Sleeping Patterns Reveal Heart Failure Risk Before Other Symptoms Appear

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia — The way the body functions during sleep may offer important clues about heart health over the next 10 years. A new study suggests that heart activity during sleep can reveal a person’s risk of heart failure, heart attack and premature death.

Researchers from Emory University and US health institutions found that changes in the heart’s electrical activity during the lightest stage of sleep, as the body is first falling asleep, were the most accurate marker. The nervous system changes rapidly at this stage, making otherwise hidden abnormalities easier to detect.

The findings were published in the journal SLEEP, with support from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“This new approach has the potential to identify the risk of heart disease years before symptoms appear,” said David Goff of the NIH.

The research team trained an AI system using health data from 16,000 patients who took part in a sleep-pattern study at a hospital in Boston, US. Their heart activity was measured during sleep using ECGs.

The AI system was then tested on two or more datasets from patients at two other hospitals.

With the help of artificial intelligence, ECG recordings taken during sleep can place people into different risk categories. The results showed that each increase in the system’s risk score was associated with:

• At least a doubling of the risk of heart rhythm disorders;

• A 69% to 133% increase in the risk of heart failure;

• A 65% to 82% increase in the risk of death from any cause; and

• A higher risk of stroke, although the increase was not as great as for heart failure.

Sleep-disorder examinations usually record heart activity, but unless an obvious abnormality is detected, the data are rarely examined further. This study shows that the information they contain may be highly valuable. Patterns in changes to heart rate and electrical conduction during sleep can reveal things that are not apparent when a person is awake.

Even after accounting for known risk factors such as age, sex, diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking, sleep data improved the accuracy of predictions. For heart failure, accuracy increased by up to 9% compared with methods commonly used today.

The findings pave the way for more proactive screening. People undergoing examinations for sleep disorders could also have their overall health risks assessed, allowing preventive measures to be taken well before disease develops. The researchers hope the method will eventually become a routine part of health checks rather than an add-on.