Living ~400lbs

You may have read that getting less sleep is associated with heart disease.  This one included a well-written description of how correlations are not causation. 

Senior author Diane S. Lauderdale cautioned that the new report does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between a lack of sleep and heart disease.

“It’s important to say that this is the first report and this does not yet prove the association is causal,” said Dr. Lauderdale, an associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “Until we know what the mechanism is — that it’s really a direct or a causal relationship — there is no point in making recommendations based on this.”

Although a number of studies have suggested that people who sleep less are at greater risk of heart disease and death, this is the first investigation to measure how much its subjects actually are sleeping, said Dr. Sanjay Patel, assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University and expert in sleep medicine. Patients’ own self-assessments can be very inaccurate, he added.

What isn’t clear is whether reduced sleep triggers physiological changes that increase heart disease risk, or whether a third, unrelated factor causes both changes, he said.

“It’s possible, for example, that people who are under more stress may be both sleeping less and at higher risk of heart disease,” Dr. Patel said.

If so, he added, “If we got those people to sleep more but they still were under a lot of stress, it wouldn’t change their risk of heart disease.” 

Pity we don’t see more of this sort of clarifying about, oh, being fat.  When you look up, oh, “obesity” on the CDC website,  it’s “Obesity increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions.”   When you do see it, it’s “[Is] Obesity a Disease or Just a Symptom”?   Suggesting that someone with a BMI of 27 – considered “normal weight” in the early 90s – could be healthy without losing weight is heresy. 

Or maybe I’m just feeling gruntled today :)   Am I overreacting?