Adults who consider themselves “night owls” tend to score lower in cardiovascular health assessments and face a higher risk of heart attack or stroke.

That’s according to a new study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which examined how a person’s chronotype — their natural tendency to be active in the morning or evening — is linked to overall heart health.

The researchers looked at 14 years of UK Biobank data for around 300,000 adults averaging 57 years old, according to a press release for the study.

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Around 8% of the participants described themselves as “definitely evening people,” which means they stayed up very late. Another 24% said they were “definitely morning people,” as they tended to wake up earlier and go to bed earlier.

The largest “intermediate” group, which included 67% of participants, said they were unsure or in neither group.

Each person’s heart health was determined using the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 score.

“Life’s Essential 8 is a comprehensive assessment that includes activity levels, diet, blood pressure, cholesterol, use of nicotine, sleep patterns, weight management and blood sugar,” shared Dr. Bradley Serwer, an interventional cardiologist and chief medical officer at VitalSolution, an Ingenovis Health company.

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The researchers also looked at incidence of heart attack or stroke over the follow-up period.

They determined that people who were more active in the evening (“night owls”) had a 79% higher risk of poor cardiovascular health compared to the intermediate group, and a 16% higher risk of heart attack or stroke, the release stated.

People who identified as being more active in the morning had slightly better heart health scores. The link was more pronounced in women than men.

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“‘Evening people’ often experience circadian misalignment, meaning their internal body clock may not match the natural day-to-night light cycle or their typical daily schedules,” said lead study author Sina Kianersi, Ph.D., a research fellow in the division of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, in the release.

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“Evening people may be more likely to have behaviors that can affect cardiovascular health, such as poorer diet quality, smoking, and inadequate or irregular sleep.”

Serwer, who was not involved in the study, noted that lifestyle habits played a significant role in these findings.

“Cardiovascular disease has multiple contributing causes,” the Maryland-based cardiologist told Fox News Digital. “Sleep is just one variable — and the importance of high-quality, restorative sleep should not be undervalued.”

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The findings could help doctors tailor lifestyle and medical interventions to help prevent cardiovascular events, the researchers noted.

The study did have some limitations, chiefly that it does not prove that staying up late causes heart problems, but only establishes an association.

Also, the study relied on people reporting their own schedules, habits and health, which could be skewed.

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Finally, the people included in the UK Biobank are primarily White and tend to have better health than the general population, the researchers noted, which means the results may not be widely generalized.

Serwer added, “While quality sleep is important, further studies are required to show exactly what sort of impact sleep alone has on cardiovascular health.”

One woman’s uncomfortable reaction to alcohol led to a grave discovery.

Hollie Thursby, 28, a mother of two from the U.K., told Kennedy News and Media that after giving birth to her second son, Jack, she began experiencing unusual symptoms.

At a checkup for her son, who was a couple of months old, Thursby mentioned that she was experiencing “unbearably itchy skin,” which is known to be a post-partum symptom. The doctor suggested it was due to changing hormones.

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Thursby added that she occasionally drank a couple glasses of wine. Although she kept the drinking to a minimum, she described having “a lot of pain” down the side of her neck.

“Really quite painful and uncomfortable,” she said, according to the report.

The mother also reported feeling extremely exhausted, which she assumed was due to caring for her children throughout the day.

“I also felt like when I got to bed that someone was sitting on my chest,” she shared.

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In July 2025, Thursby discovered a lump on the side of her neck that she described as “really quite big,” but wasn’t painful, Kennedy News and Media reported.

“It was hard, it didn’t move, but it was there,” she said. “When I turned my neck to the side, you could see it.”

Thursby’s symptoms turned out to be a form of blood cancer — Stage 2 Hodgkins lymphoma, which means it is in two or more lymph nodes, according to Cancer Research U.K.

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Common symptoms include swelling of the lymph nodes, heavy sweating, weight loss, itching, persistent cough or shortness of breath, high temperatures, and pain in the stomach or lymph nodes after drinking alcohol.

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“Pain when you drink alcohol is actually a known side effect of Hodgkin lymphoma,” she said, per the report. “It’s something about the acidity in the wine and not when you drink other alcohol.”

While alcohol-related pain in Hodgkins lymphoma patients has been “an accepted scientific consensus” since the 1950s, cases are rare, Healthline confirmed.

Thursby reportedly began chemotherapy in November, noting that the hardest part is not being able to care for her kids after losing her own mother to a blood disorder called myelodysplasia.

“I grew up without a mum, and it was horrendous. I can’t do that to the boys,” she told Kennedy News and Media. “We’re all devastated, but we all know now, and we’ve got a treatment plan, which is what we need.”

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“I’m just doing everything I can to get better for them. I keep telling myself this is only temporary, I just need to keep going.”

Anyone experiencing pain or other concerning symptoms after consuming alcohol should consult a doctor for guidance.

Red light therapy has been shown to reduce brain inflammation, protecting people who experience head trauma from long-term health consequences, a University of Utah study has shown.

Brain damage from repeated impact over the years is known to cause cognitive symptoms, ranging from memory issues to full-blown dementia, particularly affecting soldiers and athletes.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive, degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head impacts rather than a single injury, according to Mayo Clinic.

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More than 100 former NFL football players have been posthumously diagnosed with CTE, according to the new study, which was published in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

Other research has shown that military personnel in active combat suffer from similar issues, as do first responders and veterans.

In the new study, the researchers recruited 26 current football players to understand more about the impact of red-light therapy on brain injuries.

The participants received either red light therapy delivered by a light-emitting headset and a device that clips into the nose, or a placebo treatment with an identical device that doesn’t produce light. Players self-administered the therapy three times a week, 20 minutes each time, for 16 weeks.

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“My first reaction was, ‘There’s no way this can be real,’” said first author Hannah Lindsey, Ph.D., in the university press release. “That’s how striking it was.”

Players using the placebo treatment experienced increased brain inflammation over the course of the season. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans taken at the end of the season showed significantly more signs of inflammation than at the beginning of the season, the study found.

For players who used red-light therapy during the season, their brain inflammation didn’t increase at all.

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Previous studies have shown that red light, if powerful enough, can penetrate the skull and reach the brain, where it may reduce inflammation-related molecules.

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“When we first started this project, I was extremely skeptical,” said Elisabeth Wilde, Ph.D., the senior author on the study. “But we’ve seen consistent results across multiple of our studies, so it’s starting to be quite compelling.”

Study limitations

The study was conducted using a small sample size, which led to different levels of inflammation in the treatment and control groups, the researchers acknowledged.

Future large randomized clinical trials will be “crucial to back up the results” in larger populations, they noted.

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“We’ve been trying to figure out how to make sports safer, so that our kids, friends and family can participate in sports safely for the long term while they’re involved in activities that give them happiness and joy,” Carrie Esopenko, Ph.D., second author of the study, said in the release.

“And this really feels like part of the hope for protecting the brain that we’ve been searching for.”

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The team plans to recruit 300 people with persistent symptoms from TBI or concussion for a randomized controlled trial in 2026, with a focus on first responders, veterans and active-duty service members.