High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects 70 million US adults, and the healthcare costs associated with treating the disease are approximately $46 billion.
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From May 15 to 19, 2015, members of the medical community from around the world gathered at the 30th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) in New York City to discuss new scientific findings, state-of-the-art diagnostic tools and new treatments for hypertension.
During the conference, more than 200 new studies about the epidemic provided the most up-to-date information about how to prevent, diagnose and control hypertension and wide-ranging conditions thought to be associated with the "silent killer."
Among the findings from the ASH meeting is research that suggests clocking too many hours of sleep - or getting too little - significantly ups one's risk for stroke. In addition, two new studies provide insights into falls among the elderly and whether or not hypertension or anti-hypertensive meds play a role.
Sleeping less than five hours — or more than eight hours — per night is associated with a nearly twofold greater risk of stroke compared to a "healthy" length of sleep among hypertensive patients, according to research led by Oluwaseun Akinseye, M.D., from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and sponsored by NYU School of Medicine.
Using data from the National Health Interview Survey (2004-2013) about 203,794 hypertensive U.S. adults, researchers determined that risk for stroke was nearly 14 percent among long sleepers (>8 hours), 11 percent among insufficient sleepers (<5 hours), about 6 percent for short sleepers (5-6 hours), and about 5 percent for healthy sleepers (7-8 hours).
This information demonstrates that "insufficient" and "long" sleepers had an 83 percent and 74 percent increased risk for stroke compared to "healthy" sleepers. ■
A hyperactive weather pattern will bring an expansive low pressure system across mainland U.S., resulting in widespread impactful weather to progress from west to east across the country through the next few days.