Study: Frequent napping linked to high blood pressure

A study has suggested that people who nap often have a 12 percent higher chance of having high blood pressure.

The research added that they also have a 24 percent higher chance of having a stroke than people who never or rarely nap.

Napping means sleeping for a brief period of time, usually during the day.

The new study was published in Hypertension, a journal of the American Heart Association (AHA).

Researchers in China studied information from UK Biobank, a biomedical database containing genetic, lifestyle, and health information from half a million people between the ages of 40 and 69.

The subjects lived in the United Kingdom.

A higher percentage of participants who said they usually took naps were men with lower education and income levels, compared to people who never or sometimes took naps.

The group that usually took naps also smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol daily, and snored.

People who had suffered a stroke or high blood pressure were excluded from the study, leaving about 360,00 participants.

The study subjects provided blood, urine, and saliva samples as well as information about their lifestyles.

They were asked about their napping habits four times between 2006 and 2019.

The subjects self-reported their napping frequency as “never/rarely,” “sometimes,” or “usually.”

The results from the study findings were analysed, attributing frequent napping to an increased risk of blood pressure.

The researchers involved pointed out that taking naps is not harmful in itself.

They added that it may, however, indicate that people aren’t getting enough sleep at night.

“Poor night sleep is associated with poor health. Naps are not enough to make up for that,” said Michael Grandner, director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona.

“This study echoes other findings that generally show that taking more naps seems to reflect an increased risk for problems with heart health and other issues.”