Sort of related: has there been any evidence as to why sleep deprivation kills you? A friend and I were hypothesizing about it once, although neither of us are particularly knowledgeable about biology so it was a bunch of probably wild guesses.
"Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!
Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004."
So this issue has gotten to the "it just happens and we're not sure why?" The below comment (same depth level) is kind of the intuition I had, your post gives some reasons why, but I wonder if anyone knows the ground causes, or if that's as low level of abstraction possible at this point.
Sleep probably strains the body (and hence, the heart) less than wakefulness. Your heart is more liable to break down and fail if it's been overused without rest, which is exactly what happens when you stay up.
