NEW YORK — Getting fewer than 7.5 hours of sleep significantly raised the risk of clinically overt stroke in hypertensive patients with a history of silent cerebral infarct, according to multicenter study.
The study, designed to settle some of the controversy regarding the relation between sleep duration and stroke, found a modest but nonsignificant increasein risk in those without evidence of silent cerebral infarct (SCI).
By contrast, after 5 years of follow-up, those who slept less than 7.5 hours per night and had SCI had about a 1-in-4 risk of stroke, compared with a 1-in-10 risk in those who slept longer than 7.5 hours. After adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, smoking, diabetes, and other risk factors, the researchers found that the hazard ratio for stroke in patients who slept less than 7.5 hours per night and had a prior SCI was 2.52.
Dr. Kazuo Eguchi, professor of cardiovascular medicine at Jichi Medical University in Tochigi, Japan, and colleagues performed ambulatory BP monitoring in 1,268 hypertensives with a mean age of 70.4 and followed them for an average of 50 months. Brain MRI performed in 932 of these patients showed that 517 had prior SCI and 415 did not. A multivariate Cox analysis showed that, among all these patients, those who slept at least 7.5 hours per night had a significant, 20% reduced risk of stroke events, Dr. Eguchi said at the meeting.
Disclosures: Dr. Eguchi reported having no relevant financial conflicts.