The research team looked at 650,000 participants in a two-part analysis. First, they carried out an observational study, which explored the link between sleep duration and daytime napping with the risk of PAD.
They then used genetic data of 608,610 adults to do naturally randomised controlled trials called Mendelian randomisation.
Dr Yuan said: “Observational analyses are limited by reverse causality – meaning that if an association between sleep habits and PAD is found, we cannot be certain if sleep habits caused PAD or having PAD caused the sleep habits.
“Mendelian randomisation is a robust method for evaluating causality and provides more certainty about the results.”
The observational analysis of just under 53,500 adults showed that those who slept less than five hours a night had nearly double the risk of PAD.