Ah, the holidays. Time to enjoy decorations and presents. Time to relax around the Christmas dinner table with family and friends. Time to catch up on sleep? For those who are always looking for an excuse to sleep in, or sleep more, your search is not in vain: According to new research, hours spent sleeping protects against calcium deposits in the coronary arteries — the deposits responsible for heart attacks. A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Christopher King and colleagues from the University of Chicago has found a relationship between sleep quantity (hours spent asleep) and calcium build up — or calcification — in the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood. For each additional hour of sleep, the risk of calcification of the coronary arteries decreased by 33 percent — an outcome equal to reducing blood pressure by 16 point elevations. Moreover, the sleep relationship did not change even when the researchers controlled for certain traditional risk factors for heart disease, such as cholesterol, weight and diabetes. The results were part of the ongoing Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study […]