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Tired teens at risk of breaking their hearts

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Sleep-deprived teenagers are at greater risk of high blood pressure and heart attacks - and their mobile phones, computer games and iPods could be to blame, research suggests.

A study of teens aged 13 to 16 found those who slept less than 6½ hours a night were up to three times more likely to have elevated blood pressure.

Researchers said the "technological invasion of the bedroom" was responsible for creating a generation of sleep-starved youngsters.

The study, published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, looked at the sleeping patterns of 238 teenagers and found that the duration of sleep directly affected blood pressure.

Those who had trouble nodding off at night or waking up in the morning were also at increased risk.

It is the first study of its kind to look at the link between sleep and blood pressure in healthy teens.

The author of the research, Susan Redline from University Hospital's Sleep Disorders Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, said "sleep insufficiency" was often related to mobile phones, music and computers in the bedroom.

"There are teens who text message or listen to music all night, compounded by early school hours. Adolescents need nine hours of sleep," Professor Redline said.

"Parents should optimise sleep quality for their family with regular sleep and wake times and bedrooms should be quiet, dark and conducive to sleep."

High blood pressure in childhood is linked to heart disease in adulthood.

Professor Redline said the results could have huge public health implications.
TravG73

21 responses // Tired teens at risk of breaking their hearts

  •  

    What about the sleep-deprived adults? Does this have the same effect?

    abbym0308
  •  

    most teenagers i know do little more than sleep

    teddy14
    1 response to this
  •  

    A more interesting thing would be to know what to do against sleeping problems...

    Tommyjolly
  •  

    Wow... I'm screwed when school starts again. Now the thought of "I'm gonna die if I don't get sleep" will keep me up.

    KefKef
  •  

    How can I sleep if I'm on Current all the time? ^_^

    Nettle
  •  

    I was never allowed a television in my room when I was young. I was mad then, but I'm glad now. I don't need the TV to fall asleep and not having a million video games opened up my time for reading and occupying myself in other ways.

    plus, couples without a television in their room statistically have more sex than those who do...

    priorities, people.

    MissAmanda
  •  

    You know what else doesn't help? School starting before the sun comes up.

    Armageddon_Now
  •  

    what about too much sleep?

    d4rk0ne88
  •  

    It's important to get a constant block-time of sleep. Meaning 8 (or so) consecutive hours of sleep, at the same time, every night. This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT factors of your health in every aspect.

    Multiple naps throughout the day is never sufficient because you don't get deep sleep. It's crucial to receive both deep sleep and REM sleep. You can't "catch up" on sleep.

    mariamsultana
  •  

    I had to wake up at 6 am every morning for high school. Wanna solve the problem? Make school start later (in Illinois especially).
    Its hard to sleep when the sun's still up and hard to wake up when the sun's still down.

    TheSkyDrops
    1 response to this
  •  

    The connection between sleep and health is pretty obvious, but personally, Ive always had trouble sleeping, and I have almost excellent blood pressure.

    ClayCreature
  •  

    sex is awesome, regardless if futurama was left playing in the background...seems that stress and anxiety are probably the source of the insomnia (not fun things like tv)

    pyropalmtree
  •  

    I KNEW IT HAHAHAHA !
    IM NOT GONNA DIE !
    well eventually i will
    BUT THAT DOESNT MATTER!

    teto007
  •  

    When I was a teen I slept a lot. I guess though back then there wasn't all that fancy technology that they have now - you know like computers, calculators.
    HAHA !

    Swiyyah
  •  

    Good luck getting any teens to care about this one.

    Blazesboy
  •  

    If you take away all the "Distractions" then teens will be bored and not amused and will love the thought of dreaming because it is amusing unless you have atrocious nightmares.

    tanyetta
  •  

    Sleep is exponentially important for the developing brain. Adults underestimate their need for healthy sleep.

    mookster_07
  •  

    one of my professors told a story about this study group who were up all night writing a really long term paper and they had red bulls and everything and one person thought they had a heart attack. turns out, their blood was tested a while later and had the heart attack tracer or whatever. they had a minor heart attack before age 22.

    taintedview
  •  

    What teen doesn't stay up all hours of the night these days? It's something that I think almost every teen does. I know that I do it, I'm not saying that it's the healthiest thing to do, but most teens do it. But adults are at risk too if sleep deprivation is linked to high blood pressure. It can't be just teens. All human bodies, with exceptions of illness factors in various majorities, work the same. The body needs sleep to recharge so to speak. If you don't have the time to recharge, then of course your body is going to have complications with its functions.

    Bethy211
  •  

    picture is funny at least. i mean really - he must be tired to fall asleep in that position.

    larock

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