Age-dependent association between sleep duration and hypertension in the adult Korean population

In Western countries, sleep deprivation has been reported to elevate blood pressure. Here, we examined whether this association is true also for an Asian population.

The study sample comprised 5,393 Korean adults aged 19-99 years who had participated in the 2005 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Hypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥140 mm Hg or a diastolic blood pressure (DBP) ≥90 mm Hg, or regular use of antihypertensive medication.

Among the participants, 1,345 subjects (24.9%) displayed hypertension. The median sleep duration was 7 h/day. In the young and middle-aged adults aged <65 years, the unadjusted odds ratio (OR) for hypertension was 1.5-fold greater in those with a sleep duration of ≤5 h (OR 1.52; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19, 1.94) as compared to those who slept 7 h. This trend did not significantly change after adjustments for putative risk factors for hypertension such as gender, obesity, smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity, depressive symptom, diabetes mellitus, and stroke (OR 1.31; 95% CI 1.01, 1.71). However, in the older adults aged ≥65 years, no association was found between sleep duration and the risk of hypertension. Long sleep duration (≥8 h) was not associated with hypertension in either the younger or older adults in this study.

Short sleep duration (≤5 h) is independently associated with hypertension in young and middle-aged Korean adults.