TOPLINE:
Severe sleep irregularity often occurs with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and this combination approximately doubled the odds of hypertension in middle-aged individuals.
METHODOLOGY:
- OSA has demonstrated an association with hypertension, but data on the impact of sleep irregularity on this relationship are lacking.
- The researchers used the recently developed sleep regularity index (SRI) to determine sleep patterns using a scale of 0-100 (with higher numbers indicating greater regularity) to assess relationships between OSA, sleep patterns, and hypertension in 602 adults with a mean age of 57 years.
- The study’s goal was an assessment of the associations between sleep regularity, OSA, and hypertension in a community sample of adults with normal circadian patterns.
TAKEAWAY:
- The odds of OSA were significantly greater for individuals with mildly irregular or severely irregular sleep than for regular sleepers (odds ratios, 1.97 and 2.06, respectively).
- Individuals with OSA and severely irregular sleep had the highest odds of hypertension compared with individuals with no OSA and regular sleep (OR, 2.34).
- However, participants with OSA and regular sleep or mildly irregular sleep had no significant increase in hypertension risk.
IN PRACTICE:
“Irregular sleep may be an important marker of OSA-related sleep disruption and may be an important modifiable health target,” the researchers wrote.
SOURCE:
The study was led by Kelly Sansom, a PhD candidate at the Centre for Sleep Science at the University of Western Australia, Albany. The study was published online in the journal Sleep.
LIMITATIONS:
The cross-sectional design prevented conclusions of causality, and the SRI is a nonspecific measure that may capture a range of phenotypes with one score; other limitations included the small sample sizes of sleep regularity groups and the use of actigraphy to collect sleep times.
DISCLOSURES:
The study was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and the Raine Study PhD Top-up Scholarship; the Raine Study Scholarship is supported by the NHMRC, the Centre for Sleep Science, School of Anatomy, Physiology & Human Biology of the University of Western Australia, and the Lions Eye Institute. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.