People with high blood pressure who also have little sleep may be at increased risk of reduced cognitive performance and greater brain damage, according to research from Monash University.
Published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers examined whether the combined effect of high blood pressure and short sleep duration had a negative effect on brain health.
They used data from 682 dementia-free Framingham Heart Study participants who completed nightly sleep recordings, self-reported questionnaires on sleep duration, blood pressure, and cognitive assessments; 637 underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain.
In people with high blood pressure, shorter sleep duration was associated with poorer executive functioning and markers of brain injury and accelerated brain aging on MRI. These associations were not observed in people with normal blood pressure.
These results were similar after adjusting for genetic, clinical, and demographic variables.
Insufficient sleep is generally defined as less than seven hours. Participants reported sleeping an average of seven hours per night, with 32 percent reporting short sleep duration of less than six hours per night.
16 percent of individuals were diagnosed with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, and nearly a quarter of the total sample reported using sleeping pills regularly.
“In individuals with hypertension, shorter sleep duration was associated with poorer cognitive performance and greater brain damage,” the study said.
“Inadequate sleep has been linked to hypertension and dementia, and although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, it is possible that short sleep and hypertension interact to increase the risk of cognitive impairment and vascular brain injury.”
Although the cohort was based in the US, researchers believe the results would be similar in Australia.
Senior author Associate Professor Matthew Pase, from Monash University School of Psychological Sciences and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, said short sleep duration had already been linked to an increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia.
He said that although short sleep was associated with increased blood pressure, the combination of short sleep and hypertension on brain health was unclear before this study.
“These findings are important given that more than a third of Australians experience sleep problems,” said Associate Professor Pase. “It is important that sleep problems and high blood pressure are treatable. Addressing these factors could provide new opportunities for interventions to improve brain health.”
First author Dr Stephanie Yiallourou, from Monash University School of Psychological Sciences and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, said screening people with high blood pressure for insufficient sleep could enable tailored therapies to improve brain aging and reduce brain damage.
Dr. Yiallourou said they could also be the target of new randomized controlled trials to determine the efficacy of sleep treatments and blood pressure-lowering therapies in preventing or delaying cognitive impairment.
The next step in this research is to investigate whether the double whammy of short sleep and high blood pressure is associated with the long-term risk of dementia.”
Dr. Stephanie Yiallourou, first author, Monash University School of Psychological Sciences and Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health
This work was supported by an Alzheimer’s Association Grant.
Source:
Magazine reference:
Yiallourou, S., et al. (2024). Short sleep duration and hypertension: a double blow to the brain. Journal of the American Heart Association. doi.org/10.1161/jaha.124.035132.