Hypertension (High Blood Pressure) and Insomnia

jasleen_kaur via Compfight

A study was “pre-announced” on June 7 from the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit regarding the link between hypertension and insomnia. It’s kind of vague, and relied on an “internet survey” for its results.  A what??

This isn’t science. An internet survey about sleep that can draw relevant conclusions. Granted, I haven’t seen the study yet (to be presented June 12), but really.

ADDENDUM 6/25/2012: Tried to find the study online today and couldn’t – all the links were to the articles I talk about here. If anyone can actually find the published study, send me the link. Interesting, huh?

ADDENDUM to the ANNENDUM – later on 6/25/2012 – Hypnagog sent me a link to the abstract. I read it (not the whole study) and still have questions about the conclusions that can be drawn by an Internet survey. People self-reporting is bad. People self reporting about sleep is really bad.

When I heard this I did the next best thing – who else has looked at insomnia and hypertension. The study referred to the most one published in Sleep…

Insomnia and Hypertension Study

The  Journal of Sleep published this study a few years ago and concluded that, in general, people that get less than six hours of sleep, or were frequently awoken at night were up to 500% more likely to have high blood pressure than those who slept six hours or more.

The study had it’s flaws, though:

1. It didn’t differentiate properly the people in the study who suffered from severe obstructive sleep apnea, so it’s unclear how many subjects fell into that category.
2. Once you treated the OSA (normally with CPAP), blood pressure levels returned to normal.
3. With complex sleep apnea sufferers in the study, it wouldn’t be hard to find a statistically significant number of those people that had any number of severe health problems.

The recommendations for the next study that dives into this minefield would be to use any/all techniques and technology available to differentiate people suffering from a treatable medical condition – like sleep apnea, and regular insomnia. Hardly a study you could do on the internet.

My take on this news – ignore the study. Both of them.