New research suggests that poor sleep may be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, Medical Daily reported.

Researchers found that poor sleep is associated with double the risk of a heart attack and up to four times the risk of stroke.

"Sleep is not a trivial issue," researcher Valery Gafarov said in a statement. "Poor sleep should be considered a modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease along with smoking, lack of exercise and poor diet. Guidelines should add sleep as a risk factor to recommendations for preventing cardiovascular disease."

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from more than 650 men between the ages of 25 and 64 years with no history of heart attack, stroke or diabetes in Novosibirsk, Russia, Medical News Today reported. Sleep quality was assessed when the study began in 1994 using the Jenkins Sleep Scale. Very bad, bad or poor ratings were considered a sleeping disorder. Cases of myocardial infarction and stroke were recorded over the next 14 years.

Nearly two-thirds of the study participants who had a heart attack also had a sleeping disorder. They also found that men with a sleeping disorder had a risk of myocardial infarction that was 2 to 2.6 times higher and a stroke risk that was 1.5 to 4 times higher than those without a sleeping disorder between five and 14 years of follow up.

"Sleeping disorders were associated with greatly increased incidences of both heart attack and stroke. We also found that the rates of heart attack and stroke in men with sleeping disorders were related to the social gradient, with the highest incidences in those who were widowed or divorced, had not finished secondary school, and were engaged in medium to heavy manual labor," Gafarov said.

Gafarov said that for most people, good quality sleep is seven to eight hours of rest each night.

The findings were presented at EuroHeartCare, the official annual meeting of the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions of the European Society of Cardiology.