OBJECTIVETo explore the association between sleep duration and the level of puberty blood pressure of students aged 9 to 17 years in China.

METHODSThe data were from physical fitness and health research of chinese school students in 2010. A total of 123 919 boys aged 11 to 17 years and girls aged 9 to 17 years were included in our study, whose record of height, weight, blood pressure, sleep duration and first spermatorrhea/menarche were performed. Students were grouped as relative enough sleep duration group and short sleep duration group by their sleep duration reported. The level of blood pressure, as well as the prevalence of high blood pressure (HBP), was compared between different sleep duration groups, and multilevel model was used and analyzed the relationship between sleep duration and blood pressure.

RESULTS123 919 students were surveyed in this study, including 52 549 boys and 71 370 girls. The mean blood pressure of boys was 109.41/67.05 mm Hg (1 mm Hg = 0.133 kPa), 30 830 boys (58.7%) experienced first spermatorrhea, and 18 692 boys (35.6%) were defined as relative enough sleep duration. The mean level blood pressure of girls surveyed was 103.65/65.12 mm Hg, 46 031 girls (64.5%) experienced menarche, and 23 143 girls (32.4%) were defined as relative enough sleep duration. Among the boys without first spermatorrhea, 7481 boys (34.4%) were defined as relative enough sleep duration, whose mean blood pressure was 105.25/65.01 mm Hg and prevalence of HBP was 4.3% (325/7481), and 14 238 boys (65.6%) were defined as short sleep duration, whose mean blood pressure was 105.9/65.27 mm Hg and prevalence of HBP was 5.6% (802/14 238), boys with relative enough sleep duration showed a significant lower blood pressure level and the prevalence of HBP compared with boys with short sleep duration (F = 15.38, P < 0.01;χ(2) = 16.55, P < 0.01). Among girls without menarche, 9311 girls (36.7%) were defined as relative enough sleep duration, whose mean blood pressure was 100.47/63.25 mm Hg and prevalence of HBP was 2.9% (271/9311), 16 028 girls (63.3%) were defined as short sleep duration, whose mean blood pressure was 101.06/63.57 mm Hg and prevalence of HBP was 3.3% (536/16 028), girls with relative enough sleep duration showed a lower level of blood pressure compared with girls with short sleep duration (F = 17.44 and 7.11, respectively, all P values < 0.01). Among girls experienced menarche, 13 832 girls (30.0%) were defined as relative enough sleep duration, whose mean blood pressure was 105.27/66.19 mm Hg and prevalence of HBP was 6.25% (864/13 832), and 32 199(70.0%) girls were defined as short sleep duration, whose mean blood pressure was 105.12/66.19 mm Hg and prevalence of HBP was 6.0% (1924/32 199), girls with relative enough sleep duration showed significant higher level of blood pressure than girls with short sleep duration (F = 5.98, P = 0.015). After adjustment of region, BMI, height, age and urban/rural area by multilevel model, the level of systolic pressure decreased 0.18 mm Hg with 1 h increase of sleep duration among boys without first spermatorrhea (Wald χ(2) = 7.27, P = 0.007), the level of diastolic pressure decreased 0.13 mm Hg with 1 h increase of sleep duration among girls without menstruation (Wald χ(2) = 5.52, P = 0.019), and the systolic pressure and diastolic pressure increased 0.19 mm Hg and 0.14 mm Hg with 1 h increase of sleep duration among girls with menstruation, respectively (Wald χ(2) = 13.47 and 9.94, respectively, all P values < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONShort sleep duration may be one of the influential factors of HBP during puberty.