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Lack of Sleep Leading to Heart Disease?

By KSEE Sales
February 27, 2013 Updated Feb 27, 2013 at 3:11 PM PDT

How much sleep you get now could affect your health tomorrow. Experts at the CDC say people who don't get enough sleep face an increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Now a new study has found the cellular changes that lead to this increased risk.

Researchers in the UK studied 26 volunteers, who got less than six hours of sleep for a week straight. The next week they were able to sleep as much as 10 hours a night. The study found that when the participants were sleep deprived changes were made to more than 700 genes. Those genes were involved in metabolism, stress and circadian rhythms.

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