Teenagers are notorious for having bad sleep habits. New research suggests that having trouble staying awake the next day might not be the only consequence they face.
This study, the first study to look at the relationship between not getting enough sleep and blood pressure in healthy adolescents, researchers found that healthy teens (ages 13 to 16 years old) who slept less than 6½ hours a night were 2½ times more likely to have elevated blood pressure compared to those who slept longer.
In addition, those with poor sleep, or low sleep efficiency — having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep — had, on average, four mm/Hg higher systolic blood pressure and were 3½ times more likely to have pre-hypertension or hypertension than their peers who slept well. Untreated high blood pressure can increase the risk for stroke and other cardiovascular diseases later in life.
“Sleep Quality and Elevated Blood Pressure in Adolescents” is published online in the August 19, 2008 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The findings are from a cross-sectional analysis of 238 adolescents ages 13–to–16 years old (average age of 14) enrolled in the Cleveland Children’s Sleep and Health Study.
Sleep efficiency and duration was evaluated at home for three to seven nights, where teens completed a daily sleep log and wore a wrist device that measures movement to determine sleep and wake cycles.
Study participants also spent one night in a clinical sleep lab, where, in addition to assessing sleep with standard devices, staff measured blood pressure nine times throughout their visit.
Participants did not have sleep-disordered breathing or other known health conditions. Results were adjusted for gender, body mass index (an indicator of overweight or obesity), and socioeconomic status.
These results are similar to findings from other studies in adults and suggest that poor sleep may be associated with significant health consequences for adolescents. However, larger studies and analyses with blood pressure measurements repeated over time, as recommended by the NHLBI guidelines on high blood pressure in children and adolescents (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/prof/heart/hbp/hbp_ped.htm), are needed to confirm these findings.
Upon analyzing the results, the study demonstrated that:
- The odds of elevated blood pressure increased 3½ times for those teenagers with low sleep efficiency and 2½ times for those who slept less than 6½ hours.
- These figures were unaffected by gender, body mass index (BMI), and socioeconomic status.
- Teenagers who had trouble falling asleep at night and waking up in the morning (low sleep efficiency), had an average four mm/Hg (millimeters of mercury) higher systolic blood pressure compared to teenagers without these problems (higher sleep efficiency).
- 14 percent of the teenagers had pre-hypertension or hypertension with blood pressures in the 90th percentile (among the top ten percent in the country) for their height, age, and gender.
- 26 percent of the participants had low sleep efficiency, and 11per cent slept for less than 6½ hours (extremely short sleep).
- Nearly two-thirds of the teenagers with short sleep duration also had low sleep efficiency.
- 27.9 percent of the teenagers with low sleep efficiency also had short sleep duration.
- Participants with less than 85 percent sleep efficiency in the lab phase had nearly three times the odds of having elevated blood pressure.
In general, adolescents need at least nine hours of sleep a night to function at their best. However, many teens, like their adult counterparts, regularly get less than the ideal number of hours of sleep each night. In this study, participants slept on average 7.7 hours a night, with 11 percent sleeping 6½ hours or less a night.
The biological drive to sleep peaks later in the night during adolescence compared to other age groups. Combined with the daily need for nine hours of sleep, teens face unique challenges for getting sufficient sleep while meeting typical daytime schedules.
In addition, many factors that contribute to poor sleep — for example, stress, caffeine, nicotine, noise, bright lights, or an uncomfortable (e.g., too warm) room temperature — can be prevented. TVs and computers in the bedroom can greatly interfere with sleep — and are especially common among teens.
Signs of not getting enough sleep or sleeping poorly include consistently taking more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, awakening more than a few times or for long periods each night, feeling sleepy during the day, or having trouble concentrating at school or at work.
Keeping a daily sleep log, or diary, can help you track your sleep habits and identify what might be interfering with sleep. You may download a sleep diary. To download files from this site, you need to be registered as a site member to gain access. Once registered, simply login, then download the sleep diary.
Links of interest
Have you had bouts of insomnia lasting two weeks or more? Do you walk around in a constant fog, feeling sleepy, fatigued, and as though you have no energy? Perhaps you “feel” older than you are, or maybe it’s all you can do to stay awake while driving. If any of that, or similar issues are familiar, or if you snore or have disrupted sleep, even if just a few simple, repeat trips to the bathroom during the night, check out these two online tests to help you get to the root of the issue. While they will not make a diagnosis for you, they will help you, your physician, or, more appropriately, a sleep specialist, find out what’s causing you the problem sleepiness.
Epworth Sleepiness Scale (45.0 KiB, 2,187 hits)
You must be a registered user to download this file.- World Class Snoring Quiz (183.3 KiB, 3,431 hits)
You must be a registered user to download this file. - Sleep Diary (90.1 KiB, 513 hits)
You must be a registered user to download this file.
For more information
- Your Guide to Healthy Sleep
- National Center on Sleep Disorders Research
- The Fourth Report on the Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents
- A Pocket Guide to Blood Pressure Measurement in Children (for clinicians)
/Sleep News – Teens and Sleep/poor-sleep-in-teens-linked-to-higher-blood-pressure/2008-08-22.0955
__________
You must log in to post a comment.