Nagahama: Home device-monitored sleep BP reveals large artery stiffness

A simple way to assess cardiovascular risks that may have been overlooked by office and home morning blood pressure (BP) measurements is through sleep BP measurement using a home device, suggests a recent study.

The investigators carried out a cross-sectional analysis of a dataset from the Nagahama study (n=5,916), a general population-based cohort, to determine the applicability of sleep BP measured using a home device.

A timer-equipped cuff-oscillometric device (HEM-7080IC) was used to measure home morning BP and sleep BP. Office BP, carotid intima–media thickness (IMT), and brachial–ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) were measured at the follow-up investigation of the Nagahama study.

Sleep hypertension (systolic [S]BP ≥120 mm Hg and/or diastolic [D]BP ≥70 mm Hg) correlated with the arterial parameters (IMT: β, 0.051; baPWV: β, 0.141; p<0.001 for both) independently of morning hypertension (IMT: β, 0.093; baPWV: β, 0.216; p<0.001 for both) and irrespective of antihypertensive medication status.

Individuals with isolated sleep hypertension (n=801) had thicker IMT (0.69±0.14 vs 0.64±0.13 mm; p=0.017) and faster baPWV (1,299±197 vs 1,183±178 cm/s; p<0.001) than those with normal BP.

Furthermore, a sleep SBP ≥110 mm Hg and a sleep DBP ≥65 mm Hg were classified as the lower threshold BP values for the association with arterial parameters.

“High sleep BP has been suggested to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular outcomes,” according to the investigators.