THURSDAY, Aug. 29, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Do you like to sleep in on the weekends?

As a new study shows, you are probably doing your heart a lot of good.

Catching up on sleep at the weekend can reduce the risk of heart disease by up to 20 percent, according to findings presented on Thursday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in London.

“Adequate compensatory sleep is associated with a lower risk of heart disease,” said researcher Yanjun Song, a cardiologist at Fuwai Hospital in Beijing. “The association is even stronger in people who regularly suffer from sleep deprivation on weekdays.”

For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 91,000 participants in the long-term UK Biobank research project. As part of the project, participants wore sleep monitors and their heart health was monitored.

About 22% of participants suffered from sleep deprivation and slept less than seven hours per night.

Sleep tracking made it possible to show which participants slept in on the weekend to compensate for the lack of sleep during the week.

After an average follow-up of 14 years, participants who got the most sleep on weekends were 19 percent less likely to develop heart disease than those who got the least sleep.

This is especially true for people who suffer from daily sleep deprivation. Those who get the most sleep have a 20 percent lower risk of heart disease, researchers say.

Because these findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Heart Association provides detailed information about sleeping in on the weekend.

SOURCE: European Society of Cardiology, press release, August 29, 2024