A news study published in the journal Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association suggests that teenagers skipping sleep increase their risk for cardiovascular disease.

Study author Dr. Susan Redline, director of the University Hospitals Sleep Center at Case Western Reserve University and colleagues studied 238 boys and girls ages 13 to 16 interviewing them about their sleep habits.

The researchers found that 11 percent of them slept less than 6.5 hours a night and 26 percent had poor or disturbed sleep with frequent awakenings at night. Children ages 13 to 16 usually need about nine hours of sleep.

High blood pressure is defined as a reading of 140/90 or above but for children it is defined as being in the 90th percentile for their age.

The study found that one of every seven teens had either hypertension, or prehypertension. Moreover, teens with less than 85 percent sleep efficiency had nearly three times the chances of high blood pressure.

“These associations may have a large public health impact. Part of the problem is the technological invasion of the bedroom with computers, cell phones and music,” Redline said.

She further urged parents to “optimize” their children’s sleep by establishing regular sleep hours and wake times and by keeping the bedroom “quiet, dark, and conducive to sleep.”

Poor sleep has been previously linked to serious conditions such as obesity and impaired glucose tolerance in pediatric patients.

“We had been learning from adult studies and adults that poor sleep or insufficient sleep has been linked to a number of a variety of health outcomes, including coronary artery disease, diabetes, and even mortality,” Redline said.

However, the new study is the first to demonstrate an association with hypertension in teenagers, she added.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.