Heavy dinners and late-night snacks have been found to keep blood pressure elevated during sleeping hours

PEOPLE with high blood pressure should stop eating at 7pm — or at least two hours before bedtime — to cut their risk of heart attack and stroke, new research suggests.

Alisha Jessup with a burger just before 7pm. Picture: Hamish Blair

PEOPLE with high blood pressure should stop eating at 7pm — or at least two hours before bedtime — to cut their risk of heart attack and stroke, new research suggests.

Heavy dinners and late-night snacks have been found to keep blood pressure elevated during sleeping hours, just when it should be dipping.

And the result is that the body remains on “high alert”, putting increased pressure on the heart and cardiovascular system.

The study, presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Rome, tracked the night-time eating habits of 721 people with high blood pressure.

Researchers found those who ate within two hours of going to bed were 2.8 times more likely to maintain high blood pressure overnight.

“If we eat late at night, the body essentially remains on high alert as during the day, rather than relaxing for sleep,” said study author Dr Ebru Ozpelit, from Turkey’s Dokuz Eylul University.

“Stress hormones are secreted, causing blood pressure not to decrease during sleep, which should normally happen.”

Australian Heart Foundation health director Rachelle Foreman said previous studies had shown that people with hypertension have a “higher cardiovascular risk” if their blood pressure doesn’t dip by 10 per cent during sleep.

“Blood pressure does drop when people sleep, partially because the stress hormones switch off and partly because when we lie down, the heart and vessels aren’t having to work against gravity,” she said.

“The risk of consistently sleeping with elevated blood pressure is heart attack, stroke and living with chronic disease.”

Ms Foreman recommended people with high blood pressure “limit dinner to a smaller meal, avoid eating dinner within two hours of bedtime and ideally not after 7pm”.

About 4.6 million Australian adults have high blood pressure, according to the Heart Foundation.

Risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which kills one Australian adult every 12 minutes, include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, obesity, physical inactivity, low fruit and vegetable intake, alcohol and smoking.