Deans' stroke musings: Late sleepers have higher heart risk, and it's mostly preventable

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Late sleepers have higher heart risk, and it's mostly preventable

I'm definitely a late person, sometimes getting to bed at 4am, but sleeping until 11or 12. I'm sure I'm deficient in Life's 8 but I don't care, life is about having fun, not spending all my time worrying about little things like this.

Late sleepers have higher heart risk, and it's mostly preventable

People who stay up late may face higher cardiovascular risk. However, this large UK study shows that healthier sleep, smoking habits, and metabolic control could offset much of that danger.

Study: Chronotype, Life’s Essential 8, and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A Prospective Cohort Study in UK Biobank. Image Credit: PeopleImages / Shutterstock.com

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) explores the association between an individual’s chronotype and incident myocardial infarction or stroke, key indicators of cardiovascular disease risk.

Circadian rhythms may determine cardiovascular health

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Although various lifestyle factors like diet, physical activity, and nicotine use can be modified to reduce the risk of CVD, recent guidelines by the American Heart Association (AHA) emphasize the importance of sleep duration for maintaining optimal cardiovascular health.An individual’s chronotype can vary based on their sleep-wake timing, with certain circadian rhythms associated with a greater risk of cardiometabolic disease. For example, adults with an evening chronotype are more likely to experience circadian dysfunction than those with an intermediate chronotype.

Circadian misalignment can negatively impact behavior and reward-related brain functions, which have been implicated in the development of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors like poor diet quality, alcohol intake, and smoking. Chronic disruption in normal circadian cycles also leads to a wide range of physiological effects, including increased activation of the nervous system, dysregulation of blood pressure, glucose, and lipid profiles, as well as altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity.

UK Biobank data link chronotype, LE8, and CVD

The researchers of the current study used data from the participants of the United Kingdom Biobank between 39 and 74 years of age who had no prior history of myocardial infarction or stroke. Chronotype was self-reported using a single question, whereas cardiovascular health was assessed using the Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) score.

Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the association between chronotype and CVD risk over time. These estimates were adjusted for various sociodemographic, occupational, and familial risk factors.