Too little sleep raises blood pressure risk: study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Middle-aged adults who get too little sleep are more likely to develop high blood pressure, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

The study, among the first to directly measure sleep duration in middle-aged adults, found missing an average one hour of sleep over five years raised the risk of developing high blood pressure by 37 percent.

It also suggests that poor sleep may explain in part why black men have higher blood pressure risks.

"People who didn't sleep as much were at greater risk of developing hypertension over five years," Kristen Knutson of the University of Chicago reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Adults typically need between seven and nine hours of sleep, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but many get far less, and several studies have begun to show the health consequences.

In children, lack of sleep has been shown to raise rates of obesity, depression and high blood pressure. In older adults, it increases the risk of falls. And in the middle-aged, it raises the risk of infections, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

The team studied 578 adults with an average age of 40. They took blood pressure readings and measured how long each person slept. Only 1 percent slept eight hours or more.

The volunteers slept six hours on average. Those who slept less were far more likely to develop high blood pressure over five years. And each hour of lost sleep raised the risk.