The study, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, is the first of its kind to examine how lack of sleep and quality of sleep can affect blood pressure levels in healthy teenagers.
Between 2001 and 2004, researchers measured blood pressure levels in a sample of 238 teenagers aged 13 to 16 and found that those who have low sleep efficiency - such as being unable to fall asleep right away or those who tend to wake up too early - were 3.5 times more likely to have high blood pressure than teenagers who have a high level of sleep efficiency.
The report also discovered that those who had less than 6.5 hours of sleep were also 2.5 times more likely to have elevated blood pressure levels.
The study's author said although there have been similar studies on adults, this is the largest sampling that has been done on teenagers."We had been learning from adult studies and adults that poor sleep or insufficient sleep has been linked to a number of a variety of health outcomes including coronary artery disease, diabetes and even mortality," Dr. Susan Redline, a medical professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio said Monday.
In total, 14 per cent of the group already had high blood pressure or were at high risk of developing it.Redline says the findings can be attributed partly to a teenagers' lifestyle choices.
"Many of the children these days really are overscheduled. They have numerous things that keep them up late at night like homework and activities that get them up in the morning like sports teams," she said.
Teenagers also are likely to have large amounts of electronic equipment in their bedrooms that may not be conducive to sleep.
It's recommended that teenagers sleep for at least nine hours a night but few are getting this total amount, which also can be because their biological clocks are pushing them to stay up later compared to adults.
But Dr. Brian McCrindle, a spokesman for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, cautions that more research needs to be done.McCrindle, who is also a pediatric cardiologist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, said that stress, obesity and depression can affect the quality and quantity of an adolescent's sleep and cause high blood pressure.
"That's why this study is problematic. We're not sure if sleep issues are a symptom of the factor causing blood pressure abnormality or if there is a direct association," he said.
High blood pressure affects five million Canadians and is the No. 1 risk factor for stroke and a major risk factor for heart disease, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
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