Abstract 14784: Sleep Moderates the Association Between Arterial Stiffness and Blood Pressure Variability

Abstract

Introduction: Both arterial stiffness and short-term blood pressure variability (BPV) are important subclinical biomarkers of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Evidence is accumulating that poor sleep is associated with subclinical CVD. The purpose of our study was to investigate how sleep was related to arterial stiffness and BPV. We also explored if sleep changed the association between arterial stiffness and BPV. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, objective sleep characteristics were assessed by a wrist actigraphy over two days. Arterial stiffness was measured by carotid femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV). BPV was evaluated using an ambulatory blood pressure monitor over 24 hours and estimated by average real variability. Results: The sample included 87 healthy adults aged between 35 and 64 years. Sleep efficiency was an independent predictor of cfPWV and systolic BPV (SBPV), while wake after sleep onset (WASO) was an independent predictor of cfPWV, only. In addition, cfPWV showed a positive relationship with SBPV, and this relationship was moderated by sleep efficiency and WASO, respectively. The relationship between cfPWV and SBPV became stronger among individuals who had a level of sleep efficiency lower than 84% and who had WASO higher than 67 minutes, respectively. Conclusions: Our study showed that poor sleep not only had a direct link with arterial stiffness and BPV, but also moderated the relationship between these two subclinical CVD biomarkers. These findings implied that improving sleep quality could be a target intervention to promote cardiovascular health in clinical practice.