Poor sleep links to heart disease

In a study of 1,255 Japanese adults with high blood pressure aged 70.4 in average, researchers recorded each participant's blood pressure changes over 24-hour period and followed them for about 50 months.

During the follow-up, there were 99 cardiovascular disease events, they also found that participants who slept less than 7.5 hours a night had 68% high risk of one of these complications than those who had longer sleep.

They also found that the risk was higher among participants who also had an increase in overnight blood pressure than those who did not have an increase in blood pressure. Researchers concluded that "shorter duration of sleep is a predictor of incident cardiovascular disease in elderly individuals with hypertension, .......Physicians should inquire about sleep duration in the risk assessment of patients with hypertension."

Source: "Short Sleep Duration as an Independent Predictor of Cardiovascular Events in Japanese Patients With Hypertension" Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(20):2225-2231 (f/t via Athens)

Anti-hypertension drug types do not influence outcome

Previous studies suggest that the effects of anti-hypertensive drugs might be smaller among elderly people and some guidelines recommend specific types of blood pressure lowering treatment for particular age groups.

According to the BMJ, a new meta-analyses of 31 trials with more than 190,000 participants "showed no clear difference between age groups in the effects of lowering blood pressure or any difference between the effects of the drug classes on major cardiovascular events, .... also showed no difference in effects between the two age groups for the outcome of major cardiovascular events".

Source: "Effects of different regimens to lower blood pressure on major cardiovascular events in older and younger adults: meta-analysis of randomised trials -Blood Pressure Lowering Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration" BMJ 2008;336:1121-1123 ( free f/t)