Disproportionate sleep has been pegged as a trigger that starts off a chain reaction leading to complex issues in patients and a new research now strengthens this notion.
The research by Dr. Oluwaseun Akinseye, a resident in internal medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, people with high blood pressure who sleep less than five hours or more than eight hours each night may have significantly higher odds of a stroke.
The research involved analysis of data from more than 200,000 U.S. residents who had a history of high blood pressure. The analysis revealed that those who didn’t sufficiently i.e. less than five hours of shuteye each night had an 83 per cent increased risk of stroke compared to “healthy” sleepers who got seven to eight hours of sleep.
Sleeping for long hours isn’t any good either as the research found that “long” sleepers experienced a 74 per cent higher stroke risk than healthy sleepers.
“We were surprised, especially with the individuals reporting insufficient sleep, because most studies . . . have shown [only] a modest increase in the chances of suffering a stroke among those with short sleep duration,” said study author. “Our study showed much higher odds of a stroke, almost a twofold increase.”
Researchers ended up finding a connection between sleep duration and stroke risk in people with high blood pressure, but they didn’t intend to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
Researchers also revealed that high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a risk factor for stroke as well as other forms of heart disease.
Akinseye and his colleagues used data collected over nine years from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey of nearly 204,000 Americans with high blood pressure. Overall, the stroke risk was nearly 14 per cent among “long” sleepers; 11 per cent among “insufficient” sleepers; 6 per cent for “short sleepers” logging five to six hours per night; and about 5 per cent among “healthy” sleepers.
Researchers aren’t sure why duration of sleep is associated with stroke risk, but short amounts of shuteye are linked to higher levels of cortisol, which is also known as “stress hormone”, in the body, while long amounts of sleep are linked to the release of inflammatory chemicals.
Findings from the study are scheduled to be presented Friday at the American Society of Hypertension’s annual scientific meeting in New York City.
