An afternoon nap is good for your heart. Source: ThinkStock
NANNA naps may be able to save you from a heart attack, but only if you can avoid drinking buckets of coffee and sitting in front of the TV all day while awake.
In a good news-bad news scenario for a modern lifestyle, three separate studies presented in London today have shed a fresh insight into first world health problems.
Taking regular midday naps was found to lower a person’s blood pressure and keep heart attacks at bay, according to research at the European Society of Cardiology conference.
A one-hour daylight snooze was found to lower a person’s blood pressure by four per cent when awake and six per cent while sleeping at night — which is enough to drop their heart attack risk by a 10th, according to study author Dr Manolis Kallistratos from Asklepieion Voula General Hospital in Athens.
Coffee drinkers have an increased risk of heart attacks. Source: News Limited
But, in a blow for Melbourne’s coffee aficionados, young adults with a heavy penchant for caffeine were found to have a fourfold increase in the risk of heart attacks and other cardiac events.
Even those aged 18-45 with only a “moderate” consumption of 1-3 coffees a day are raising their risk of heart attacks by three times, according to a 12-year study of more than 1200 patients at Italy’s Hospital of San Daniele del Friuli.
“Our study shows that coffee use is linearly associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events in young adults with mild hypertension,” study author Dr Lucio Mos said.
“This relationship seems to be at least partially mediated by the long term effect of coffee on blood pressure and glucose metabolism.
“These patients should be aware that coffee consumption may increase their risk of developing more severe hypertension and diabetes in later life and should keep consumption to a minimum.”
Couch potatoes are doubling their chances of suffering a fatal pulmonary embolism. Source: ThinkStock
Couch potatoes are also doubling their chances of suffering a fatal pulmonary embolism — the condition usually associated with long-haul flights where blood clots form and spread to a person’s lungs.
An 18-year Japanese study of 86,000 people found those who watched more than five hours TV a day had twice the rates of dying from the condition as those spending only two and half hours in front of the screen.
“We showed that prolonged television viewing may be a risky behaviour for death from pulmonary embolism,” Mr Toru Shirakawa of Osaka University said.
“Prolonged computer gaming has been associated with death from pulmonary embolism but to our knowledge a relationship with prolonged smartphone use has not yet been reported.”