Hypertension risk high in inactive women who sleep poorly

Middle-aged women with low physical activity levels and sleep difficulties are at increased risk of developing hypertension, a study suggests.

The study used data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health and included 5,300 middle-aged women. All participants completed four triennial surveys—which assessed the presence of hypertension, physical activity, and the number of sleep difficulties (0-4)—starting in 2004, when they were at a mean age of 55 years.

Physical activity was measured as total MET.min/week and dichotomized as inactive (<500 MET.min/wk) or active (≥500 MET.min/wk). Joint categories of physical activity and sleep difficulties were formed using six mutually exclusive groups. Discrete-time survival analysis using logit-hazard models facilitated analysis of associations of joint physical activity and sleep difficulty groups with incident hypertension.

A total of 1,175 cases of incident hypertension (22.2 percent) were documented. Hypertension was more likely to occur among women in the ‘Inactive and 1 Difficulty’ (odds ratio [OR], 1.31, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.06–1.62) and ‘Inactive and 2-4 Difficulties’ (OR, 1.44, 95 percent CI, 1.16–1.78) groups relative to women in the ‘Active and No Difficulties’ group.

Sleep difficulties showed no association with hypertension among active women.

The findings suggest that physical activity may protect against the risk of hypertension among women with sleeping difficulties.