For Better Brain Health, Bring Down Your Blood Pressure
Getting Less Than 7 Hours Of Sleep Linked To High Blood Pressure, Study Says
Females who had reported fewer than seven hours of sleep had an even greater (7% higher) likelihood ... [+] of developing high blood pressure than males did. (Photo: Getty)
gettyWill this increase the pressure for you to get more sleep? A new study has found an association between getting less than seven hours of sleep and having high blood pressure. This study hasn't yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal so take its findings with a figurative grain of salt—although not too much real salt since consuming too much salt can raise your blood pressure, too. But this study will be presented in the upcoming American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, from April 6 through 8.
The study—led by Kaveh Hosseini, M.D., an assistant professor of cardiology at the Tehran Heart Center in Iran—pooled together data from 16 studies conducted between January 2000 and May 2023. All told, this encompassed 1,044,035 people from six countries who had had no prior history of hypertension before the study period. The people had been followed for a median of five years, ranging from 2.4 to 18 years.
Those who slept less than seven hours a night had a 7% higher likelihood of developing high blood pressure during the study period. This higher likelihood jumped to 11% among those who reported sleeping less than five hours a night. And females who reported fewer than seven hours of sleep had an even greater (7% higher) likelihood of developing high blood pressure than males who had comparable amounts of sleep did.
These associations held when the researchers statistically adjusted for other risks for high blood pressure such as having higher body mass index, having diabetes, being of older age and having a history of smoking. By the way, histories of diabetes and smoking were associated with a 20% or higher likelihood of developing high blood pressure.
Keep in mind that such a study can only show associations and not provide cause-and-effect. That's because the researchers really didn't know many key details about each person's life. For example, they had no way of knowing what type of personal and professional stress each person was undergoing over the study period. Stress can make it more difficult for you to get more sleep and at the same raise your blood pressure. Moreover, this was all based on people reporting their own sleep levels, which can be quite inaccurate. Unless you followed each person while you were disguised as a giant pillow for several years, you can't tell for sure if they were reporting their sleep patterns accurately.
Nonetheless, this certainly was not the first study to find associations between getting less sleep and having higher odds of developing high blood pressure. A review article published in a 2010 issue of Chest summarized some of the other studies that had already shown such links at the time. Such studies as well as other studies showing links between less sleep and other health problems have already prompted the American Heart Association to recommend that adults get somewhere between seven to nine hours a night. They placed a nine-hour cap because getting too much sleep is not necessarily a good thing either. For example, if someone were to tell you that they are getting 20 hours of sleep a night, you probably wouldn't think, "Yeah, that's about right."
A connection between getting too little sleep and high blood pressure shouldn't be too surprising since sleep is when your body repairs and restores itself. Going without enough sleep can be like keeping your car running all the time. When you don't get enough sleep, over time your body can end up accumulating more and more damage in different ways and may have more difficulty regulating hormones such as cortisol that can, in turn, affect your blood pressure. And controlling your blood pressure is important, as high blood pressure can lead to all sorts of health problems such as heart disease and stroke.
So, you may want to sleep on the findings of this study and what may be preventing you from getting more than seven hours of sleep a night. For example, is your bedroom conducive to your getting enough sleep? Maybe lower the temperature there, remove the disco ball from the ceiling or tell your neighbor to stop playing "We Built This City" by Starship each night between 2 and 8 a.M. Are your television watching or social media browsing habits keeping you from getting to bed in time? Perhaps you should put an X on reading things on X (or Twitter or whatever you want to call it) late at night or making Instagram more of it Look-at-it-later-gram. Is your work or social life schedule keeping you from getting enough shut eye? Well, you may not feel the pressure to get enough sleep right now. But that may change in the future.
Lack Of Sleep Linked To High Blood Pressure In Children And Teens
Children and teenagers who regularly get too few hours of sleep may be at higher risk of developing high blood pressure, new research indicates. The findings may change how doctors talk with kids and their parents about hypertension.
An analysis of data from more than 500 children and teens with hypertension revealed an association between shorter-than-recommended sleep times and high blood pressure, according to the study, published in Pediatrics.
While hypertension in kids has been declining, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 7 young people ages 12 to 19 have hypertension.
The study doesn't prove that shortened sleep times cause hypertension, but doctors don't typically think of sleep when they counsel parents about high blood pressure, said the study's lead author, Dr. Amy Kogon, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
Data for the study came from children and teens seen at a clinic at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where Kogon is a pediatric kidney specialist.
"We usually target things like diet and exercise," Kogon said. "This is another thing parents might want to think about, particularly if the child has high blood pressure."
Major risk factors for hypertension in children and teens include being overweight, not getting enough physical activity and a poor diet, according to the American Heart Association.
The majority of middle and high school kids in the U.S. Are sleep-deprived. In fact, according to the CDC, nearly 60% of middle school kids and more than 70% of high schoolers aren't getting enough sleep.
As many as a third of elementary school kids get less than the recommended amount of sleep, Kogon said.
The number of hours of sleep children and teens should get depends on age. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends:
It's important to control blood pressure early in life because the longer someone has hypertension, the higher the risk of developing heart disease, said Dr. Barry Love, director of the congenital cardiac catheterization program at Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Heart Center.
"We know that high blood pressure is associated with the early onset of coronary disease and stroke," said Love, who wasn't involved in the new study. "We think that the damage to blood vessels happens over time."
For the new study, researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia examined the medical records of 539 kids, average age 14.6 years, who were referred to pediatric kidney clinics because of high blood pressure readings. The kids were asked when they went to bed and when they got up in the morning. They were also asked to wear ambulatory blood pressure measuring devices, which took readings every 20 minutes while they were awake and every 30 minutes during sleep.
The further sleep duration was from recommended levels, the more likely it was for kids to experience high blood pressure during the day. Kids who went to bed late were also more likely to have hypertension. The findings were consistent regardless of the kids' ages, sexes and BMI categories.
Too much sleep was also linked to blood pressure issues. Normally, blood pressure drops by around 10% during sleep, but that was less likely when kids slept longer than the recommended amount.
Anxiety causes sleep problems for about 25% of children ages 1 to 6, according to a University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll. Those kids were less likely to have bedtime routines and more likely to leave on videos or TV shows, their parents reported in the poll, which was released Monday.
Another possible cause of sleep problems: An estimated 59% of kids weren't turning off their electronic devices at night, the poll found.
It's not so much the light from the devices that causes problems but rather what the kids are viewing on such devices. Apps like TikTok and Instagram can spoil sleep because they are "difficult to put down and are also stimulating," Kogon said.
Reading a book on a device, for example, "is probably not the same as flipping through social media," Kogon said.
Parents shouldn't allow cellphones in kids' bedrooms at night, Kogon said. She also suggests kids not have any kind of electronics or TVs in bedrooms.
Dr. Mariana Bedoya, an assistant professor of allergy, immunology, pulmonology and sleep medicine at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said other ways to help improve sleep include:
"I tell patients not to change their sleep schedule by more than an hour and a half to two hours over the weekend," said Bedoya, who wasn't involved in the new study.
Love said it's tough for kids to get enough sleep these days. "Is it that kids are worrying or eating bad things?" he asked. "There are so many things distracting them from sleep."
This story first appeared on NBCNews.Com. More from NBC News:
Snoring Linked To Uncontrolled High Blood Pressure
Snoring is common and occurs when air flows past relaxed tissues in the upper airway while breathing. Some studies suggest that snoring may be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The findings, however, have been limited as most studies have relied on subjective, self-report, snoring evaluation.
In the current study, researchers investigated the link between snoring and hypertension prevalence using in-home monitoring technology. To do so, they monitored 12,287 participants, with an average age of 50, every night for around six months using under-the-mattress sensor technology to estimate the average percentage of sleep time spent snoring. Blood pressure was also assessed via an FDA-registered at-home blood pressure monitor.
Altogether, 20% of participants had uncontrolled hypertension, and 29%, 14%, and 7% snored for an average of more than 10, 20, and 30% of the night. The researchers found that those who spent a higher proportion of time snoring were roughly 1.9-fold more likely to have uncontrolled hypertension independent of sleep apnea than those who spent the lowest proportion of time snoring.
"We observed that in those who snore regularly the risk of having uncontrolled hypertension was almost double. This risk almost doubled again in people who snored regularly and had sleep apnoea versus those who did not snore regularly," said senior study author, Professor Danny Eckert, Director of Sleep Health at Flinders University, in a press release.
"The findings of this study pave the way to further investigate whether therapeutic interventions directed toward snoring can reduce hypertension and reduce the risks associated with it," said lead study author Dr. Bastien Lechat from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in a press release.
Sources: Neuroscience News, npj Digital Medicine
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