A new study has found that people who sleep better may be less likely to suffer from a serious mix of health problems that affect the heart, kidneys, and metabolism. The study looked at the connection between sleep quality and a complex condition known as CKM syndrome. The research was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
CKM stands for cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic. This condition is not just one disease but a group of related health problems.
These include obesity, type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and heart problems like heart failure, stroke, or clogged arteries. People who already have these issues, or are at risk of developing them, can be considered as having CKM syndrome.
In the United States, around one in three adults—about 89 million people—have three or more risk factors that could lead to CKM syndrome. These risk factors include being overweight, having high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, or high levels of fat in the blood. Poor sleep is also one of the many things that can make the condition worse.
Researchers from China, led by Dr. Chaoqun Ma, looked at sleep and CKM stages in over 10,000 American adults using data collected between 2015 and 2020. On average, the people in the study were 49 years old. The team wanted to understand if the quality of sleep was related to how advanced a person’s CKM condition had become.
They focused on five signs of sleep quality:
- How long people slept
- If they had trouble falling or staying asleep
- If they felt sleepy during the day
- If they snored
- If they had to get up at night to urinate (a condition called nocturia)
The CKM condition itself was divided into five stages:
- Stage 0: No risk factors
- Stage 1: Only excess weight
- Stage 2: Metabolic risk factors or early kidney disease
- Stage 3: Hidden signs of heart disease
- Stage 4: Clear heart problems such as heart attacks or strokes
Stages 3 and 4 were considered “advanced” stages of the illness.
The study found that people who already had CKM syndrome but slept better were less likely to be in the more serious stages (stages 3 or 4) of the condition. In other words, good sleep was linked to less severe illness.
However, this does not prove that good sleep causes better health. Dr. Brendan Everett, a professor at Harvard Medical School who was not part of the study, warned that this kind of research—called a cross-sectional study—only looks at one point in time.
It can’t show what comes first. “You can’t say that sleeping better prevents disease,” he explained. “It might be the other way around. Being very sick could make people sleep poorly.”
Dr. Ma agreed, saying future research needs to follow people over time to figure out whether poor sleep causes CKM to get worse or if worsening health causes poor sleep. Long-term studies like these could help scientists find clearer answers.
One challenge in this kind of research is that many things affect sleep. A person might sleep badly because of a poor diet, work stress, money problems, or living in a noisy or unsafe area. These social and lifestyle factors are hard to control for in a study.
The researchers tried to adjust for some things like income and education. But they didn’t have data on things like housing quality or social support, which may also play a role in both sleep and overall health.
In summary, the study suggests there is a connection between sleep and CKM syndrome. People with better sleep seemed to have a milder form of the illness. But because this study only shows a link, not a cause, more research is needed. The idea that sleep could protect against disease is promising—but we need to learn more before drawing firm conclusions.
Review and Analysis
This study adds to growing evidence that sleep is connected to our overall health—not just how we feel during the day, but also how our body fights off chronic diseases.
It shows that among people with heart, kidney, and metabolic problems, those who sleep better may not be as far along in the disease process. That’s encouraging, especially because sleep is something people can improve with changes to their routine.
But this study has its limits. It can’t prove that better sleep leads to better health. It only shows that sleep and illness are connected. It’s possible that people who are already very sick are simply sleeping worse because of their symptoms or stress.
Even with these limits, the research is important. It points to sleep as a possible factor in preventing or slowing serious health problems. For now, it’s safe to say that taking care of your sleep—by aiming for regular, restful nights—might be one more way to support your overall health.
If you care about sleep health, please read studies about foods that help people sleep better, and Keto diet could improve cognitive function in people with sleep loss.
For more health information, please see recent studies about the natural supplements for sound sleep, and how your diet can improve sleep quality.
The research findings can be found in JAHA.
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