Even 34 Minutes Past Bedtime Can Increase the Risk of Hypertension

Sleep is one of the most important modes of recovery for the body. Getting a good night’s rest is imperative to good health. A recent study found that going to bed just 34 minutes later is linked to a significant rise in the risk of developing hypertension. The study was published in the medical journal Hypertension. Researchers looked at people with irregular sleep patterns and whether or not that was linked to an increased risk of hypertension, or high blood pressure.

Millions of people suffer from high blood pressure, or hypertension, worldwide. It is one of the most common causes of preventable death.

The study included 12,287 adults between the ages of 38 and 62. 88% of the participants were men and defined by the researchers as overweight.

The researchers used a combination of a below-the-mattress sleep measuring device and regular blood pressure recordings to make the connection.

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The Association Between Irregular Sleep and Hypertension

They found that having irregular sleep patterns could lead to a 9% to 17% increased risk of high blood pressure, regardless of how much total sleep you get.

Additionally, the researchers also observed that even slight variations in bedtime from night to night as little as 34 minutes could lead to a 32% increased risk of high blood pressure.

Dr. Allen J. Taylor, chairman of cardiology at MedStar Heart and Vascular Institute, says that the value of studies like this is that they provide more data to inform people seeking medical care about how rest can impact their risk of hypertension.

“The more specific you can make behavioral suggestions, the more likely they’re going to be carried out. I think sleep is a very specific suggestion.”

Taylor and his peers see sleep and its relationship to hypertension as part of a larger whole that includes other areas of behavioral change.

“I think just like diet, sleep is something we all do every day. So like, we recommend any sort of lifestyle practices to improve our health. And that could include diet and exercise. Sleep is one of the strategies and stress is another good example,” says Taylor.

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Other Factors Impacting Hypertension

One area that the study doesn’t interrogate is the possible impact of social determinants of health—areas like gender, race, and socioeconomic status — could have on the results. It’s something that Dr. Karen D. Lincoln (Ph.D.), a professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of California-Irvine, would like to see in future work.

“When we talk about interventions and what are the things that we can do to target interventions or to increase and promote health, having a little bit more information about socioeconomic status; which is education, where people live, what people have access to; is really important because eating better and, eating organic, some of those things are inaccessible to other populations,” says Lincoln.

While Lincoln is not sure of the immediate impact of the study within her work—at the intersection of African-American communities, cognitive impairment, and sleep— beyond confirming what is already known in the field, she says that she hopes that this area of research can delve into the indirect relationships that spring up when it comes to sleep and hypertension.

“So, for example, people who are sleep deprived, who don’t sleep enough overall are more likely to engage in what we would call unhealthy behaviors, right? So you are more sedentary because you’re tired, you’re less likely to exercise, and you’re more likely to eat comfort food, like salty foods, sweet foods, and things like that. And so sleep in and of itself, produces certain types of behaviors that can ultimately cause high blood pressure,” said Lincoln.

Lincoln also points to locational factors, like a lack of available grocery stores and public parks, as a lens that we can use to understand the research area. In other words, sleep irregularity—often called sleep disruption in the United States—has a knock-on effect.

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Further Research on the Mechanism is Needed

While the new study finds evidence that inconsistent and irregular sleep may lead to an increased risk of high blood pressure, experts say more research is needed to verify the findings.

“I think the notion of what the mechanism is and what’s happening here has its own importance. Just so we can fill in the biological understanding between the observation and the associations that have been made,” says Taylor.

References:

1. Sleep Irregularity Is Associated With Hypertension: Findings From Over 2 Million Nights With a Large Global Population Sample - (https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/hypertensionaha.122.20513)

Source-Medindia