光睡饱还不够！

充足的睡眠有利于保持头脑清醒和身体健康，但现在看来，仅仅有“充足的睡眠”并不够。

A new study on sleep patterns suggests that a regular bedtime and wake time are just as important for heart and metabolic health among older adults.

一项针对睡眠模式的研究表明，就老年人的心脏和代谢问题来讲，规律的就寝时间和起床时间同样不可忽视。

In a study of 1,978 older adults publishing Sept. 21 in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers at Duke Health and the Duke Clinical Research Institute found people with irregular sleep patterns weighed more, had higher blood sugar, higher blood pressure, and a higher projected risk of having a heart attack or stroke within 10 years than those who slept and woke at the same times every day.Irregular sleepers were also more likely to report depression and stress than regular sleepers, both of which are tied to heart health.

杜克大学健康研究所和临床研究所的研究人员在9月21日的《科学报告》上发表了一项研究。研究发现，相比规律作息的人，睡眠不规律的人更易长胖，血糖、血压更高，在接下来的10年内患心脏病或中风的风险也更高;更糟的是，他们也更容易产生压力甚至是变得抑郁起来，而这两者都与心脏的健康密不可分。

African-Americans had the most irregular sleep patterns compared to participants who were white, Chinese-American or Hispanic, the data showed.

数据还表明，与白人、华裔或西班牙裔美国人相比，非裔美国人的睡眠模式最不规则。

The findings show an association—not a cause-and-effect relationship—between sleep regularity and heart and metabolic health.

但作息规律与心脏、代谢健康之间还只是存在一定联系，并非确凿无疑的因果关系。

"From our study, we can't conclude that sleep irregularity results in health risks, or whether health conditions affect sleep," said Jessica Lunsford-Avery, Ph.D., an assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the study's lead author. "Perhaps all of these things are impacting each other."

杰西卡 · 伦斯福德-艾弗里博士是精神病学和行为科学的助理教授，也是这项研究的主要作者，他说："根据我们的研究，我们还不能确定，到底是睡眠不规律导致了健康风险攀升，还是健康状况影响了睡眠。但也许所有这些因素都在互相影响。"

Still, the data suggest tracking sleep regularity could help identify people at risk of disease, and where health disparities may impact specific groups, such as African Americans.

尽管如此，数据仍说明，跟踪睡眠规律可以用以识别有疾病风险的人，以及健康差异可能会影响特定群体。

"Heart disease and diabetes are extremely common in the United States, are extremely costly and also are leading causes of death in this country," she said. "To the extent we can predict individuals at risk for these diseases, we may be able to prevent or delay their onset."

她说:"心脏病和糖尿病在美国非常普遍，不仅治疗成本极高，而且也是引起美国人死亡的主要原因。只要我们能够预测这些疾病的风险，我们也许能够预防或延缓这些疾病的发生。"

Participants used devices that tracked sleep schedules down to the minute so researchers could learn whether even subtle changes—going to bed at 10:10 p.m. instead of the usual 10 p.m.—were linked to the health of participants. Their ages ranged from 54 to 93, and people with diagnosed sleep disorders such as sleep apnea were not included.

实验中，参与者使用的设备可以将睡眠时间精确到每分钟，这样研究人员就可以知道，即使是微妙的变化——比如晚上10点10分睡觉，和一般晚上10点准时睡觉时，健康状况有何不同。 他们的年龄从54岁到93岁不等，其中并不包括睡眠障碍的人(如睡眠时呼吸暂停)。

The study also tracked the duration of participants' sleep and preferred timing—whether someone turned in early or was a night owl. According to these measures, people with hypertension tended to sleep more hours, and people with obesity tended to stay up later.Of all three measures, however, regularity was the best at predicting someone's heart and metabolic disease risk, the researchers found.

这项研究还跟踪了参与者的日常睡眠时间和偏好的时间点，以检查是否有人提前睡觉或是夜猫子。他们发现，高血压患者的睡眠时间更长，而肥胖的人往往睡的时间更晚;而规律性是预测人的心脏和代谢疾病风险的不二手段。

"Perhaps there's something about obesity that disrupts sleep regularity," Lunsford-Avery said. "Or, as some research suggests, perhaps poor sleep interferes with the body's metabolism which can lead to weight gain, and it's a vicious cycle. With more research, we hope to understand what's going on biologically, and perhaps then we could say what's coming first or which is the chicken and which is the egg."

博士说："也许是肥胖扰乱了睡眠规律。又或者，正如一些研究表明的那样，睡眠不足可能会干扰身体的新陈代谢，从而导致体重增加，这是一个恶性循环。我们希望能通过更多的研究，了解生物学上的原理，这样我们就可以知道，到底哪个是鸡，哪个是蛋。"