What Can I Take to Sleep if I Have High Blood Pressure

Past Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Sept. 28 (HealthDay News) -- People with high blood pressure who lose slumber as the effect of medications known every bit beta blockers may benefit from a nightly dose of melatonin.

In a small study published in the October outcome of the periodical Sleep, people beingness treated for loftier blood pressure, or hypertension, who also took melatonin slept longer, fell asleep sooner and had more restful slumber than people taking an inactive placebo.

"The sleep community is well enlightened of the difficulties that beta blockers can cause with indisposition and sleep fragmentation," said Dr. Michael Yurcheshen, a physician with the Strong Slumber Disorders Eye at the University of Rochester Medical Heart in New York. "Although the sample size [in this study] is small, the results are compelling. If existent-world experience parallels [these] lab results, such changes could make a significant clinical bear on for these patients."

Yurcheshen, who is also an associate professor of neurology, was non involved with the study.

Non only are beta blockers widely prescribed to combat hypertension, they are also used for many other cardiovascular disorders as well as migraine, feet disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Some 22 million people in the United States alone take a beta blocker regularly, according to groundwork data in the study, with a common side effect being indisposition.

Slumber impecuniousness, in turn, has increasingly been linked with diabetes, obesity and heart disease, not to mention full general mood and attention problems.

Beta blockers may affect sleep by inhibiting the release of melatonin, a hormone involved in regulating both sleep and the body's circadian clock.

To examination the theory that melatonin supplementation might help people on beta blockers sleep improve, researchers randomly assigned 16 adults with hypertension taking ane of the beta blockers metoprolol or atenolol to also take either 2.v milligrams of melatonin or a placebo every night for three weeks.

All of the patients underwent polysomnography, an overnight sleep examination that records brain waves, muscle tone, eye rate and eye movements.

Participants who took melatonin slept an average of 36 minutes longer per dark than those taking the placebo.

The treated participants also brutal comatose 14 minutes faster, spent more time asleep while they were in bed (a measure known as "sleep efficiency") and spent an average of 41 minutes longer in stage 2 slumber, which is the longest sleep stage, usually taking upwardly more 50 percent of a person'due south sleep time.

"Melatonin reduced their time awake from near 20 percent to just 12 percent, virtually halving their wake time during the night," said Frank Scheer, lead study author and managing director of the medical chronobiology program at Brigham and Women'southward Hospital in Boston.

Participants didn't report any differences in mood or energy levels only such subjective measures vary more than than objective measures such as those recorded by polysomnography, Scheer said.

And melatonin levels in the body did rise.

"We showed a very clear increase with supplementation of melatonin at night," said Scheer, who is besides an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Melatonin has several advantages over many drugs prescribed to aid slumber.

People on melatonin didn't have a "rebound" upshot of seeing their sleep deteriorate after going off the supplements, every bit happens with many slumber drugs.

In addition, said Scheer, "we establish a carry-over event of a benefit, so even when participants stopped taking melatonin, at that place was however some benefit."

Nor was there whatever sign of increased tolerance leading to a demand for higher doses of the drug. "Indeed, melatonin remained constructive across each of the three weeks of supplementation," Scheer said.

"At that place are some apparent benefits of melatonin as opposed to other hypnotics," said Scheer, who nevertheless pointed out that the report is a modest i and needs to be confirmed in larger trials.

Melatonin is widely available as an over-the-counter supplement and studies accept shown it to be relatively safe for up to half a yr, Scheer said. There are no studies that document its condom beyond that fourth dimension indicate.

Anyone considering taking melatonin should speak with their doctor or health care provider, Scheer said.

Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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References

SOURCES: Frank Scheer, Ph.D., director, Medical Chronobiology Program, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and banana professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston; Michael E. Yurcheshen, 1000.D., associate professor of neurology, and physician, Stiff Slumber Disorders Center, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, N.Y.; October 2012, Sleep

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Source: https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=163461

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