University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.
J Hypertens. 2010 Feb;28(2):265-71. doi: 10.1097/HJH.0b013e328333ab01.
Both the size and diversity of an individual's social network are strongly and prospectively linked with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Social relationships may influence cardiovascular outcomes, at least in part, via their impact on physiologic pathways influenced by stress, such as daytime blood pressure (BP) levels. However, scant research has examined whether social relationships influence key nocturnal pathways, such as nocturnal BP dipping.
The current study examined the degree to which social integration, as measured by participants' reported engagement in a range of different types of social relationships, and the frequency of daily social contacts influence the ratio of night/day mean arterial pressure (MAP) in a community sample of African-American and white men and women (N = 224). In addition, we examined the degree to which observed associations persisted after statistical adjustment for factors known to covary with nocturnal BP, including objective measures of sleep, catecholamines, health behaviors, and comorbidities.
In fully adjusted models, there was a significant association between both social integration and frequency of social contacts and the ratio of night/day MAP, indicating that socially isolated individuals were more likely to have blunted nocturnal BP-dipping profiles. There was also a significant interaction between social contact frequency and ethnicity, suggesting that the benefits of social relationships were particularly evident in African-Americans.
These findings contribute to our understanding of how social integration or conversely, social isolation, influences cardiovascular risk.
个体社交网络的规模和多样性与心血管发病率和死亡率呈强烈且前瞻性的关联。社交关系可能通过影响压力相关的生理途径，如日间血压（BP）水平，从而对心血管结局产生影响。然而，很少有研究探讨社交关系是否会影响关键的夜间途径，如夜间 BP 下降。
本研究在一个非裔美国人和白种人男性和女性的社区样本中，调查了社交整合程度（通过参与者报告参与各种不同类型的社交关系来衡量）和每日社交接触频率，在多大程度上影响平均动脉压（MAP）的夜间/日间比值（N=224）。此外，我们还研究了在对与夜间 BP 相关的已知因素（包括睡眠、儿茶酚胺、健康行为和合并症的客观测量）进行统计调整后，观察到的关联在多大程度上仍然存在。
在完全调整的模型中，社交整合和社交接触频率与夜间/日间 MAP 比值之间存在显著关联，表明社交孤立的个体更有可能出现夜间 BP 下降幅度降低的情况。社交接触频率和种族之间也存在显著的交互作用，表明社交关系的益处在非裔美国人中尤为明显。
这些发现有助于我们理解社交整合或相反的社交孤立如何影响心血管风险。
