Sleep fragmentation and incidence of congestive heart failure: the Sleep Heart Health Study.

STUDY

OBJECTIVES

Sleep fragmentation (SF) has been reported to be associated with cardiovascular risk. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between SF and congestive heart failure (CHF).

METHODS

A total of 4,887 participants (2,256 males and 2,631 females; mean age of 63.6 ± 11.0 years) from the Sleep Heart Health Study were included in this study. Incident CHF was defined as the first occurrence of CHF between baseline in-home polysomnography (PSG) and the end of follow-up. Objective assessments for SF, including sleep fragmentation index (SFI), arousal index (ArI), sleep efficiency (SE), and wake after sleep onset (WASO), were determined based on in-home PSG records. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between SF and incident CHF.

RESULTS

During an average of 10 years of follow-up, 543 participants with CHF (11.1%) were observed. Individuals with CHF had a significantly higher SFI, total ArI, and WASO and a lower SE than controls. After multivariate Cox regression analysis, SE (odds ratio [OR], 0.967; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.955-0.978; P < .001), WASO (OR, 1.009; 95% CI, 1.006-1.012; P < .001), SFI (OR, 1.046; 95% CI, 1.007-1.086; P = .021), and total ArI (OR, 1.018; 95% CI, 1.000-1.035; P = .044) were found to be associated with the incidence of CHF in participants without hypertension.

CONCLUSIONS

Objectively measured SF was associated with the incidence of CHF. The role of SFI, total ArI, SE, and WASO deserves further investigation.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registry: ClinicalTrials.gov; Name: Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS) Data Coordinating Center (SHHS); URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00005275; Identifier: NCT00005275.

CITATION: Yan B, Wu Y, Fan X, Lu Q, Ma X, Bai L. Sleep fragmentation and incidence of congestive heart failure: the Sleep Heart Health Study. J Clin Sleep Med. 2021;17(8):1619-1625.