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Sleeping Less than 7.5 Hours Daily May Cause Heart Disease for Elderly with Hypertension
Senior Journal
November 12, 2008
Particularly when it occurs with elevated nighttime blood pressure; sleep patterns should be checked for those with high blood pressure.
Sleeping less than seven and a half hours per day may be associated with future risk of heart disease for older people, according to a report in the November 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
In addition, a combination of little sleep and overnight elevated blood pressure appears to be associated with an increased risk of the disease.
Getting adequate sleep is essential to preventing health conditions such as obesity and diabetes as well as several risk factors for cardiovascular disease including sleep-disordered breathing and night-time hypertension (high blood pressure).
But, the evidence has been growing that changes in modern lifestyle are causing people to get less sleep.
This study, by Kazuo Eguchi, M.D., Ph.D., at Jichi Medical University, Tochigi, Japan, and colleagues, monitored the sleep of 1,255 individuals with hypertension (94%) and followed them for an average of 50 months.
Their average age was 70.4 years with a range of 33 to 97 years; there were 476 men and 779 women.
Researchers noted patients' sleep duration, daytime and nighttime blood pressure and cardiovascular disease events such as stroke, heart attack and sudden cardiac death.
During follow-up, 99 cardiovascular disease events occurred.
Sleep duration of less than 7.5 hours was associated with incident cardiovascular disease.
"The incidence of cardiovascular disease was 2.4 per 100 person-years in subjects with less than 7.5 hours of sleep and 1.8 per 100 person-years in subjects with longer sleep duration," the authors write.
Patients with shorter sleep duration, plus an overnight increase in blood pressure, had a higher incidence of heart disease than those with normal sleep duration plus no overnight increase in blood pressure.
But, the occurrence of cardiovascular disease in those with a longer sleep duration, versus those with a shorter sleep duration, was similar in those who did not experience an overnight elevation in blood pressure.
"In conclusion, shorter duration of sleep is a predictor of incident cardiovascular disease in elderly individuals with hypertension," particularly when it occurs with elevated nighttime blood pressure, the authors note. "Physicians should inquire about sleep duration in the risk assessment of patients with hypertension."
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