Healthy sleep patterns are associated with reduced risk of developing heart failure, even after accounting for other risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes, a UK study suggests.

Researchers examined sleep data on 408,802 participants in the UK Biobank study with no history of heart failure at baseline.

Each participant completed questionnaires about chronotype, sleep duration, insomnia, snoring, and excessive daytime sleepiness, and researchers evaluated their sleep on a 5-point scale with top scores indicating the healthiest sleep pattern: an early chronotype, sleeping 7-8 hours, little or no insomnia, and no snoring or excessive daytime sleepiness.

After a median follow-up period of 10.1 years, a total of 5221 (1.3%) people developed heart failure.