Married people have a 9% higher risk of high blood pressure, study finds

Previously, the link between married life and high blood pressure was mostly a joke—something people teased about rather than studied seriously.
High blood pressure, despite its often subtle symptoms, can be life-threatening. Currently, 1.28 billion people worldwide have hypertension. Recently the disease has been affecting younger people: more people aged 25 to 30 are being diagnosed with high blood pressure. Only half of those with hypertension are receiving treatment. Those who do not seek treatment face an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
According to researchers at West Virginia University, married people have a nine percent higher risk of hypertension, the Daily Mail reported.

What Scientists Discovered

The university team wanted to see whether spouses—who often share interests, living conditions, lifestyles, and health profiles—tend to suffer from high blood pressure.
Researchers analyzed blood pressure readings from 1,086 English couples, 6,514 Chinese couples, 22,389 Indian couples, and 3,989 couples from the United States.
The researchers counted participants as having hypertension if their blood pressure exceeded 140/90 mmHg.
The measurements showed that about 47 percent of English couples, over 38 percent of American couples, 21 percent of Chinese couples, and 20 percent of Indian couples had high blood pressure.
Moreover, among people whose partners had high blood pressure, the likelihood of developing hypertension was nine percent higher.
Bethany Barone Gibbs, an associate professor at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, noted, “If your spouse has hypertension, you’re likely to have it too.”
Given the findings, the researchers said couple-based diagnosis and treatment for high blood pressure could be more effective than treating partners individually.
The study’s results were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
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