Total sleep time and other sleep characteristics measured by actigraphy do not predict incident hypertension in a cohort of community-dwelling older men

Study objective: To evaluate whether actigraphy-measured total sleep time and other sleep characteristics predict incident hypertension in older men.

Methods: Study subjects were community-dwelling participants in the ancillary sleep study of the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study (MrOS) who were normotensive at the time of actigraphy (based on self-report, lack of antihypertensive medication use, and with systolic blood pressure < 140 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure < 90 mm Hg). In 853 community-dwelling men 67 years and older (mean 75.1 years), sleep measures (total sleep time [TST]), percent sleep [%-sleep], latency, and wake after sleep onset [WASO]) were obtained using validated wrist actigraphy with data collected over a mean duration of 5.2 consecutive 24-h periods. We evaluated incident hypertension (based on self-report, use of antihypertensive medication, or measured systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mm Hg) at a follow-up visit an average of 3.4 years later. Baseline prehypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure 120 to < 140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure 80 to < 90 mm Hg.

Results: At follow-up, 31% of initially normotensive men were hypertensive (264 of 853). Those with incident hypertension had higher baseline body mass index (BMI; kg/m(2)) and were more likely to have had prehypertension at the sleep visit than those men who remained normotensive. However, neither TST (reference 6 to < 8 h; < 6 h OR 0.96 [95% CI 0.7, 1.3] and ≥ 8 h OR 0.93 [0.5, 1.7]) nor the other actigraphic-measured sleep variables, including % -sleep (reference > 85%; < 70% OR 1.17 [0.66, 2.08]) and 70% to ≤ 85% OR 1.23 (0.9, 1.68), sleep latency (reference < 30 min; ≥ 30 min OR 1.29 [0.94, 1.76]), or WASO (reference < 30 min; 30 to < 60 min OR 0.7 [0.43, 1.14] and ≥ 60 min OR 0.92 [0.58, 1.47]) differed in those community-dwelling men who developed incident hypertension compared to those who remained normotensive.

Conclusion: TST and other sleep parameters determined by wrist actigraphy were not associated with incident hypertension in community-dwelling older men.