Association Between Hypertension, Body Mass Index, and Sleep: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Sleep disorders can act as risk factors and even aggravate underlying conditions. With prevalence of 17% in general population, hypertension is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in India. Though hypertension has various well established risk factors like family history, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, smoking and age, sleep is often an understudied and overlooked factor. Body mass index is another important risk factor for various physical conditions. Associations between sleep and body mass index have been documented in many studies around the world. Although a consensus is yet to be drawn, many studies highlight that BMI related disorders could be predicted by sleep duration and quality. Materials and Methods: Two hundred consecutive hypertensive patients who were attending the OPD for follow-up were included as participants in this study after obtaining an informed consent. A semi structured proforma was designed to elicit the socio demographic profile of the participants. Each participant was assessed for the presence of sleep disorders by sleep-50 questionnaire and quality of sleep by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Results: Results found that BMI was significantly correlated with sleep quality, sleep duration, and sleep disorder. Hypertension was not significantly correlated to sleep quality or duration but associated to sleep disorder. Conclusion: This study found that body mass index was significantly correlated with sleep variables such as sleep duration, sleep quality, and sleep disorders. Maintaining a healthy BMI could in fact impact the amount and quality of sleep an individual receives.