Insomnia-A main Symptom of Heart Failure in Young Men

Heart failure is one of the leading causes of death occurring in the world as in 2016 it accounted for 15.2 million deaths. Along with heart failure comes along many other health issues including Insomnia

Insomnia-A main Symptom of Heart Failure in Young Men

Heart Failure is a prevailing condition that weakens heart’s ability to pump blood to its best ability due to structural disorders consisting of narrowed arteries. In the long term causes the muscles of heart to weaken progressively, as a result less blood is pumped by the heart.

Research has shown a clear correlation among heart failure and Insomnia in the past few years. Insomnia is not a life-threatening situation but is still creating a big obstacle for the people who are already suffering from heart failure.

Insomnia affects the quality of life by increasing the levels of fatigue in patients, making their recovery tougher. Moreover, this affects the mental state of the patient by making them more irritable and psychologically unstable.  Insomnia is known as a non-threatening condition yet it has the power to influence the condition of the heart. During Insomnia the diet patterns of individuals get highly affected. This imbalance of diet effects the condition of the heart, making it more susceptible to heart failure in the long run.

Clinical Symptoms of HF in young men

Many Clinical symptoms include fatigue, nycturia and sometimes there is fluid retention which can cause ascites and peripheral edema.

This newly discovered possible link between the heart failure has baffled the scientists. Insomnia is the difficulty going to or maintaining sound sleep which results in morning sickness lazy days and headaches and has many types out of which chronic insomnia, insomnia caused by the drugs comorbid insomnia. A research by a scientist suggested that many of the heart failure patient had insomniac issues.

Another study reported same results, the heart failure patients had long histories of sleep disruption and other sleep abnormalities. The scientists have been trying to find out methods by which the severity of these can be reduced. The controlled test was carried out in which the patients were given a supervised training on sleep quality and management. This was a randomized test, the people with HF and insomnia who had taken it showed a lot of improvement in the sleep quality hence improving their prevalent condition. 

Relationship of Insomnia,Heart failure and Depression in young men

According to statistics 4- 10 % of heart failures strike in men in late 30’s and early 40’ i.e. before the age of 45.This knowledge of direct relationship between insomnia and heart failure can help doctors determine the risk of heart failure in young men. Most of the times along with insomnia, early symptoms such as sleep apnea and frequent desire to pee are also observed in young males who are at risk of heart failure.

An indirect relationship of insomnia and heart failure has also been observed in young men, where depression was the main ruling factor for sleep deprivation.In a study 1190 male students were studied and followed up at age 40.As a result 12% of them were found to be in clinical depression and drank more coffee. So as result it was concluded that clinical depression is also an independent factor for the cardiac disease in young men.

Now the question arises that how does insomnia play part when depression is an independent factor leading to cardiac problems?

According to a study 200 patients with insomnia were studied and 38% of them were taking anti-depression medicines having beta-blockers.

The answer to the question asked is that beta-blockers medication are given to patients with hypertension and depression. These beta blockers causes insomnia in patients with clinical depression, which in results leads to the risk of heart failure ,especially in young men.

With advancement in this research there are high chances that heart failure risk in young men can be treated at early stages by observing the changes in sleeping patterns

Authors: Samina Tahir ,Tooba Malik, Nausheen Ilyas