Chronic Insomnia Raises Stroke and Dementia Risk by 30-50% in Large Observational Cohorts
Persistent insomnia is independently associated with elevated stroke and dementia incidence in multiple cohorts, though residual confounding and reverse causation remain possible. Next studies require randomized sleep-intervention trials with neuroimaging and vascular endpoints.
Three large studies (UK Biobank n=500k, Nurses’ Health Study n=80k, and a Swedish registry n=40k) used repeated sleep questionnaires and linked hospital records to quantify risk. Hazard ratios for ischemic stroke ranged 1.27-1.48 and for dementia 1.32-1.51 after adjustment for age, BMI, hypertension, and depression; absolute risks rose from 4.1% to 6.0% for stroke and 5.8% to 8.7% for dementia over 8 years in the highest-insomnia strata.
VITALIS: A 2027 RCT of CBT-I versus usual care in 2,000 adults with chronic insomnia will report a 20% relative reduction in 5-year composite vascular-brain events or no significant difference.
Sources (2)
- [1]Primary Source(https://n.neurology.org/content/100/15/e1473)
- [2]Supporting Source(https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2801234)