In this study, we examined the relationship between
self-reported sleep duration and the diagnosis of hypertension
during an 8- to 10-year follow-up period between 1982 and
1992 among subjects who participated in the epidemiologic
follow-up studies of the first National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey (NHANES I).14–16 We hypothesized that
prolonged short sleep duration is associated with hypertension.
We theorized that obesity and diabetes act as partial
mediators of this relationship, because short sleep duration is
associated with obesity17,18 and the incidence of type 2
diabetes19 and because depriving healthy subjects of sleep has
been shown to decrease leptin, increase ghrelin, increase
appetite,20 and compromise insulin sensitivity.21 We also
hypothesized that the relationship between short sleep duration
and the incidence of hypertension is stronger in younger
subjects than in older subjects, because stronger associations
have been found in younger populations than in older
populations between sleep-disordered breathing and hypertension22
and between short sleep duration and obesity.17,18