Prof. Tang Xiangdong and Dr. Li Yun of Sleep Medicine Center attended the Council on Hypertension Scientific Sessions 2016 held by American Heart Association and American Stroke Association in Orlando, FL (USA) from September 14-17. Their paper “Insomnia with Physiological Hyperarousal is Associated with Hypertension” won the 2015 Hypertension Top Paper Award in the category of clinical science. They shared this award with their co-author Prof. Alexandros Vgontzas from Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Prof. Tang’s team conducted a comparative study among 219 patients suffering from chronic insomnia and 96 normal people without the symptom. It was found that insomniacs with physiological hyperarousal would have 300-400% higher risk of hypertension than normal people. Insomniacs with the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) larger than 14 min would have 300% larger risk of hypertension than normal people, those with the MSLT > 17 min would have 400% larger risk, while those with the MSLT < 14 min would show no difference. This study was published in Hypertension in early 2015 (Vol. 65, pp 644-650), with Dr. Li Yun being the first author and Prof. Tang and Prof. Vgontzas as the co-corresponding authors. The study had been featured by over one hundred international mediae including Daily Telegraph, Bloomberg, Reuters and US News.

Professor Anna Dominiczak, Editor-in-Chief of Hypertension, commented at the Award Ceremony that the study from West China Hospital of Sichuan University had discovered that insomniacs with physiological hyperarousal would suffer from hypertension more easily. He also said that the research filled the gap between insomnia and physiological hyperarousal, and thus was selected as one of two top papers in the category of clinical science for 2015.