Sleep, a rare commodity in many homes across this country, may be even more important than previously thought. Sleep experts presenting their latest findings in Boston reveal that middle-aged or older Americans who habitually get too little sleep increase their risks of stroke dramatically.

When you have this sleep loss, you increase inflammation in the body, you also, there is a lot of dysregulation in blood pressure as well.

And this affects many American adults. The number of people who report a full eight hours or more of sleep each night has dropped 10% in the last decade to only 28% in the US.

There's not enough hours in the day.

I am a truck driver and I work 10 to 14 hours a day.

Sometimes I just worry too much.

Stroke, the fourth leading cause of death in this country, occurs when the blood flow to the brain is interrupted. It's more common in people with high blood pressure and sleep deprivation can be a contributing factor.

Today's study says that those who get less than six hours of sleep at night are four times as likely to suffer a stroke.

What makes this new research even more concerning is that more than 56,000 people included were not overweight or suffering from an activity, also key risk factors for stroke. A reason experts say to make sleep a priority.

It's just making commitment to stopping work and stopping all those activities earlier in the night and giving themselves adequate opportunity.

There may be some connection between a lack of sleep and then disturbances in the cardiovascular system and while the results are preliminary. The numbers really point to a worrying conclusion that in addition to your weight and not smoking and getting some fresh air and yes all the things we know to do, sleep has to be on that list of how we keep us healthy. The first thing I'll say to Brian, to people, Brian, get your television set out of your bedroom.

Oh, boy, the story got the attention of a lot of people today as you know, Nancy, Thank you.