Preliminary research suggests disruptions in sleep may raise the risk of an irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation (AF).

Clinicians have known that obstructive sleep apnea, or sleep interrupted by pauses in breathing, is a known risk for atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is an irregular heartbeat that can lead to strokes, heart failure and other heart-related complications.

However, until now, evidence supporting a relationship between disrupted sleep and atrial fibrillation — even when there’s no sleep apnea — has been mixed.

In the new study, presented by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2016, investigators examined three sources of data.

Saliently, researchers used a different approach to isolate and confirm the effects of poor sleep on atrial fibrillation. Their analyses of these studies showed that:

• disrupted sleep, including insomnia, may be independently associated with atrial fibrillation;
• people who reported frequent night-time awakening had about a 26 percent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those who didn’t wake up a lot; and
• people diagnosed with insomnia had a 29 percent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those without insomnia.

Insomnia meant having trouble falling asleep, not getting enough sleep, or having poor sleep.

“The idea that these three studies gave us consistent results was exciting,” said lead study author Matt Christensen, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Past research has shown a link between poor sleep among people who already had AF. But this study focused on people whose pre-existing sleep disruptions were associated with developing AF later in life.

The data sources included:

• the Health eHeart Study — an internet-based cross-sectional study of more than 4,600 people;
• the Cardiovascular Health Study — an 11-year longitudinal study of just over 5,700 people, of which almost 1,600 (28 percent) developed atrial fibrillation;
• and the California Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, — a hospital-based database spanning five years and covering almost 14 million patients.

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