Link Between Insomnia and Hypertension

Insomniacs are at an increased risk of developing hypertension, claims study.

Researchers at the Henry Ford Center for Sleep Disorders, Detroit, found that the prevalence of hypertension was greater in insomniacs compared to normal sleepers.

Insomnia — Overview
Difficulty in initiating and maintaining sleep is known as insomnia. It is a symptom that occurs due to other disorders and can cause daytime sleepiness.

"The cause of hypertension in insomniacs is due to the number of times the individual wakes during the night as well as their sleep latency - the length of time it takes to accomplish the transition from full wakefulness to sleep," Christopher Drake, lead author of this study, said.

"We found that the longer it took the subjects to fall asleep and more times they woke during the night, the more severe their hypertension," he said.

Insomnia is the inability to fall asleep or remain asleep and is the most common sleep complaint among Americans.

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According to the National Center for Sleep Disorders Research at the National Institutes of Health, about 30 to 40 percent of adults say they have some symptoms of insomnia within a given year, and about 10 to 15 percent of adults say they have chronic insomnia.

The Henry Ford study compared 5314 subjects with insomnia to those with normal sleep habits using an internet-based questionnaire.

Sleeping Disorders
How many times have you stayed awake in the dead of the night counting sheep? If it is fairly often then you could be suffering from a sleep disorder!

The questionnaire looked for patterns of insomnia symptoms, presence and severity of hypertension and sleep and health habits. The normal sleepers were then compared to insomniacs for prevalence of hypertension.

The study will be presented on Tuesday at the Sleep 2012 Conference in Boston.

Blood Pressure Chart
Blood pressure is the pressure of the blood flowing through your blood vessels against the vessel walls. Just by entering you age, you can get the accurate range of blood pressure value.

Source-ANI