Sleep good for arteries

A good night's sleep may be just what your arteries need. So finds a new five-year study in which middle-aged people who had an extra hour of sleep each night were less likely to have artery-stiffening calcium deposits. But the study results shouldn't send people off to bed prematurely or have them popping sleeping pills, cautioned Diane Lauderdale, associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago Medical Centre, who led the study. "We don't know why there is an association," Lauderdale said. "And until we know why, we can't tell whether it is a causal association." The report was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. - Health24