BEIJING,
Feb. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- People who regularly take midday naps lower their risk of
dying from heart disease by more that one third, media Tuesday quoted a
comprehensive study in Greece as saying.
Those people who napped at least three times weekly
for about half an hour had a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart attacks
or other heart problems than those who did not nap, the study said in
the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The strongest evidence was in working men, because
not enough women died during the study to make the data relevant. However,
it's very probable women can also benefit from napping at work.
"We interpret our findings as indicating that among
healthy adults, siesta, possibly on account of stress-releasing consequences,
may reduce coronary mortality," said Androniki Naska, the lead author of the
study.
"This is an important finding because the siesta
habit is common in many parts of the world, including the Mediterranean region
and Central America," Naska said.
Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, the senior author of the
study and a professor of cancer prevention at the Harvard School of Public
Health, acknowledged the study included only a small number of people who
had died of coronary artery disease, and that the results when women were
analyzed separately, while suggestive of some effect, were not conclusive.
The study was markedly different from previous
similar studies that gave mixed findings regarding the effect of naps on heart
health. For the first time, it took into account the effects from smoking, diet
and exercise. Care was also taken to ensure that none of the study subjects were
ill at the time the study began.
However, criticism of the study has not failed to
appear.
Dr. Henry S. Cabin, a professor of medicine at Yale
and director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Heart Center, expressed a degree of
skepticism.
"This study seems to be reasonably well done," Cabin
said, "but maybe that ability to take a nap is a marker of a different kind of
lifestyle that itself reduces risk. Maybe leading a more leisurely life is the
message, rather than running home to take a nap."
(Agencies)
