AUA student Stephanie D. Jarrin’s research article entitled, Insomnia and hypertension: A systematic review, was recently accepted for publication

Insomnia is a prevalent sleep disorder that is associated with a multitude of health consequences. Particularly, insomnia has been associated with cardiovascular disease and its precursors, such as hypertension and blood pressure (BP) non-dipping.

Stephanie and her team’s systematic review aimed to summarize the evidence on the concurrent and prospective associations between insomnia and hypertension and/or BP. Using electronic search engines such as PubMed, over 5,000 articles published from January 1970 to December 2017 were identified, and 64 met the inclusion criteria.

Findings indicated that when insomnia is frequent, chronic, and/or accompanied with short sleep duration or objective markers of arousal, there is a strong association with hypertension/BP. Based on limited studies, hypertension did not significantly predict future insomnia in middle-aged adults, however did in older adults. In addition, based on a majority of case-control studies, no differences in BP were found between participants with and without insomnia.

The article recommends that further research is needed to identify putative pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the link between insomnia and hypertension, and the impact of insomnia therapy on BP should also be further examined.

AUA congratulates Stephanie and her team on their research, and acceptance for publication!