Cardiometabolic Risk Increased in Working-Aged Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Public health measures necessary to mitigate the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) impacted lifestyles and health practices. This multiyear cohort analysis of U.S. working-aged adults aims to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on metabolic syndrome and explores contributing factors. Methods: This longitudinal study (n = 19,543) evaluated year-to-year changes in metabolic syndrome and cardiometabolic risk factors through employer-sponsored annual health assessment before and during the COVID-19 pandemic using logistic mixed-effects model. Results: From prepandemic to pandemic (2019 to 2020), prevalence of metabolic syndrome increased by 3.5% for men and 3.0% for women, across all ethnic groups. This change was mainly driven by increased fasting glucose (7.3%) and blood pressure (5.2%). The increased risk of metabolic syndrome was more likely to occur in individuals with an elevated body mass index (BMI) combined with insufficient sleep or physical activity. Conclusions: Cardiometabolic risk increased during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with before the pandemic in a working-aged adult population, more so for those with a high BMI, unhealthy sleep, and low physical activity practices. Given this observation, identification of risk and intervention (including lifestyle and medical) is increasingly necessary to reduce the cardiovascular and metabolic risk, and improve working-aged population health.

Sleep debt: the impact of weekday sleep deprivation on cardiovascular health in older women.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Short sleep duration is associated with increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, it is uncertain whether sleep debt, a measure of sleep deficiency during the week compared to the weekend, confers increased cardiovascular risk. Because sleep disturbances increase with age particularly in women, we examined the relationship between sleep debt and ideal cardiovascular health (ICH) in older women. METHODS: Sleep debt is defined as the difference between self-reported total weekday and weekend sleep hours of at least 2 hours among women without apparent CVD and cancer participating in the Women's Health Stress Study follow-up cohort of female health professionals (N = 22 082). The ICH consisted of seven health factors and behaviors as defined by the American Heart Association Strategic 2020 goals including body mass index, smoking, physical activity, diet, blood pressure, total cholesterol, and glucose. RESULTS: Mean age was 72.1 ± 6.0 years. Compared to women with no sleep debt, women with sleep debt were more likely to be obese and have hypertension (pall < .05). Linear regression models adjusted for age and race/ethnicity revealed that sleep debt was significantly associated with poorer ICH (B = -0.13 [95% CI = -0.18 to -0.08]). The relationship was attenuated but remained significant after adjustment for education, income, depression/anxiety, cumulative stress, and snoring. CONCLUSION: Sleep debt was associated with poorer ICH, despite taking into account socioeconomic status and psychosocial factors. These results suggest that weekly sleep duration variation, possibly leading to circadian misalignment, may be associated with cardiovascular risk in older women.

Relationship Between Psychosocial Stressors and Atrial Fibrillation in Women >45 Years of Age.

Negative emotions have been linked to the development of atrial fibrillation (AF), and positive effect may be protective. However, there are few large-scale studies examining the association between psychosocial stressors that may provoke these emotions and the occurrence of AF. We examined the cross-sectional relation between psychosocial stress and AF in 24,809 women participating in the Women's Health Study. Participants answered questions about work stress (e.g., excessive work, conflicting demands), work-family spillover stress (e.g., too stressed after work to participate in activities with family), financial stress (e.g., difficulty paying monthly bills), traumatic life events (e.g., death of a child), everyday discrimination (e.g., less respect, poor service), intimate partner stress (e.g., how judgmental is your spouse/partner), neighborhood stress (e.g., neighborhood safety, trust), negative life events within 5 years (e.g., life threatening illness, legal problems), and cumulative stress (a weighted measure of the stress domains). The prevalence of confirmed AF was 3.84% (N = 953) and risk factor profiles differed by AF status. Women with AF reported significantly higher financial stress, traumatic life events, and neighborhood stress (peach < 0.05). Only traumatic life events (odds ratio 1.37, 95% confidence interval 1.19 to 1.59) was significantly associated with AF after adjustment for cardiovascular risk factors, socioeconomic and psychosocial status. These large-scale cross-sectional data thus indicate a potential relationship between traumatic life events and AF in older women.