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Poor sleep is associated with up to seven years worth of increased heart disease risk and even premature death, according to a study. The research, published in the journal BMC Medicine, analysed data from more than 300,000 middle-aged adults from the UK Biobank. Researchers from the University of Sydney in collaboration with Southern Denmark University found that different disturbances to sleep are associated with different durations of compromised cardiovascular health later in life compared to healthy sleepers. In particular, men with clinical sleep-related breathing disorders lost nearly seven years of cardiovascular disease-free life compared to those without these conditions, and women lost over seven years, they said. The study found that even general poor sleep, such as insufficient sleep, insomnia, snoring, going to bed late, and daytime sleepiness is associated with a loss of around two years of normal heart health in men and women. "Our research shows that, over time, .
E-cigarettes and marijuana may have harmful effects on the heart similar to those caused by tobacco cigarettes, opening the door to abnormal heart rhythms, according to a study conducted in mice. E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products have become popular because the public perceives them as being less harmful than smoking, the researchers said. Similarly, legal recreational marijuana has become more common in recent years, and is also frequently viewed by the public as being safer than smoking tobacco, they said. "We found that cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and marijuana greatly interfere with the electrical activity, structure, and neural regulation of the heart," said study lead author Huiliang Qiu, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the US. "Often, any single change can lead to arrhythmia disease. Unfortunately, these adverse effects on the heart are quite comprehensive," Qiu said. The study, published in the journal Heart Rhythm, expo