Poor Teen Sleep Habits May Lead to Heart Disease

(August 22, 2008) - Getting a good night's sleep (Read about "Sleep") when you are a teenager might protect you from heart disease (Read about "Coronary Heart Disease") later in life. Teenagers who don't sleep well or long enough may have a higher risk of elevated blood pressure (Read about "Hypertension: High Blood Pressure") that could lead to cardiovascular disease later in life, researchers report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers found the odds of elevated blood pressure increased 3.5 times for those with low sleep efficiency and 2.5 times for those with sleeping periods of less than 6.5 hours, even after adjusting for gender, body mass index and socioeconomic status. (Read about "Body Mass Index")

Adolescents with low sleep efficiency - those who have trouble falling to sleep at night or who wake up too early - had an average 4 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) higher systolic blood pressure compared to children with higher sleep efficiency.

The study of 238 (123 boys and 115 girls) 13-to 16-year-olds is the first to examine insufficient sleep and blood pressure in healthy adolescents.

"Our study underscores the high rate of poor quality and inadequate sleep in adolescence coupled with the risk of developing high blood pressure and other health problems," said Susan Redline, M.D., M.P.H., senior author of the study. "We also found that a low sleep efficiency may be more consistently associated with pre-hypertension than a shorter sleep period."