I read with interest the provocative article by Bursztyn et al1; however, I question whether the link is as causal as the authors suggested.
Sleep is an important part of life. One feature of populations with a low incidence of coronary artery disease, as in China, is the afternoon nap. It has been an age-old custom for Chinese of all ages, especially the elderly population, to take an afternoon nap. As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to reach anyone in the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, between noon and 2 PM because everybody is supposed to be napping.
The afternoon nap represents an important stress-coping mechanism that can provide protection against coronary artery disease. The results of a small case-control study in Athens, Greece,2 supported later by a much larger population study,3 provided strong support for this hypothesis.
If the Jerusalem study indeed suggested a cause-and-effect . . . [Full Text of this Article]