Listen up, insomniacs! Tossing and turning into the wee hours may be more harmful than you think.
Two new studies suggest that insomnia may have harmful affects on both the body and mind, including a rise in blood pressure and an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior. “The message is that insomnia is not a minor problem that can be ignored,” says Alexandros N. Vgontzas, MD, director of the Center for Sleep Disorder Medicine at Penn State University.
In the first study published Wednesday in the journal Sleep, Dr. Vgontzas and his colleges studied 1,741 men and women. People with long-term insomnia (a year or longer) and a short sleep time (less than five hours a night) were five times as likely to have high blood pressure as people without insomnia who slept six or more hours per night. People with insomnia who slept five to six hours a night were three-and-a-half times as likely to have high blood pressure as insomnia-free sleepers who snoozed for at least six hours a night.
“Our results are novel because for the first time they show that insomnia is associated with a high risk for hypertension,” Dr. Vgontzas says. “Until now, only sleep apnea has been associated with high blood pressure.” Sleep apnea is a disorder characterized by heavy snoring and upper-airway collapse, in which sleepers snort and gasp for breath, sometimes hundreds of times a night.
Although the exact link between high blood pressure and insomnia is still unclear, Dr. Vgontzas says an increased secretion of the stress hormone cortisol may play a role.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Thursday, April 2nd 2009 at 7:46PM
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