Insomnia With Objective Short Sleep Duration and Incident Hypertension: The Penn State Cohort

• Published in: Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. 1979) Tex. 1979), 2012-10, Vol.60 (4), p.929-935
• Main Authors: Fernandez-Mendoza, Julio, Vgontzas, Alexandros N, Liao, Duanping, Shaffer, Michele L, Vela-Bueno, Antonio, Basta, Maria, Bixler, Edward O
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Arterial hypertension. Arterial hypotension; Biological and medical sciences; Blood and lymphatic vessels; Cardiology. Vascular system; Clinical manifestations. Epidemiology. Investigative techniques. Etiology; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Health Surveys; Humans; Hypertension - epidemiology; Hypertension - etiology; Incidence; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Polysomnography; Risk; Sleep - physiology; Sleep Apnea Syndromes - complications; Sleep Apnea Syndromes - epidemiology; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - complications; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - epidemiology; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 0194-911X; 1524-4563; 1524-4563
• DOI: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.112.193268

Insomnia with objective short sleep duration appears to be a biologically more severe phenotype of the disorder. No longitudinal study to date has examined the association of this type of insomnia with incident hypertension using polysomnography. From a random, general population sample of 1741 adults of the Penn State Cohort, 1395 were followed-up after 7.5 years, and 786 did not have hypertension at baseline. Hypertension was determined by a self-report of receiving treatment for high blood pressure. Chronic insomnia was defined as a complaint of insomnia lasting ≥1 year, whereas poor sleep was defined as moderate-to-severe sleep difficulties. All of the subjects underwent 8-hour polysomnography. Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) was defined as an obstructive apnea/hypopnea index ≥5. We used the median polysomnographic percentage of sleep time to define short sleep duration (ie,