If your spouse or partner has high blood pressure, you ought to check your own. According to research just published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, if one member of a heterosexual couple has elevated blood pressure, there’s greater likelihood the other does, too.
“Many people know that high blood pressure is common in middle-aged and older adults, yet we were surprised to find that among many older couples, both husband and wife had high blood pressure in the U.S., England, China and India,” senior author Chihua Li, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan and the study’s corresponding author, said in a news release. “For instance, in the U.S., among more than 35% of couples who were ages 50 or older, both had high blood pressure.”
Other studies have found shared high blood pressure in single-country studies. The researchers wanted to see if it was a more global finding.
“Ours is the first study examining the union of high blood pressure within couples from both high- and middle-income countries,” said study co-lead author Jithin Sam Varghese, an assistant research professor at the Emory Global Diabetes Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta. “We wanted to find out if many married couples who often have the same interests, living environment, lifestyle habits and health outcomes may also share high blood pressure.”
Researchers looked at blood pressure in nearly 34,000 couples and found that in England, about 47% both had high blood pressure, compared to 38% in the U.S., 21% in China and 20% in India.
They said high blood pressure is more common in the U.S. and England, but the association between couples’ high blood pressure status was stronger in China and India.
“One reason might be cultural. In China and India, there’s a strong belief in sticking together as a family, so couples might influence each other’s health more,” said study co-lead author Peiyi Lu, a post-doctoral fellow in epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. “In collectivist societies in China and India, couples are expected to depend and support each other, emotionally and instrumentally, so health may be more closely entwined.”
Researchers noted limitations, including that it captured blood pressure readings just once and that the study included only heterosexual couples.
Hypertension’s toll and prevention
According to American Heart Association’s 2023 statistics, in 2020, nearly 120,000 deaths were primarily attributable to high blood pressure, and from 2017 to 2020, 122.4 million (46.7%) U.S. adults had high blood pressure.
Experts, including at the association, suggest a number of tools that can help reduce blood pressure:
- A healthier diet. The Mediterranean diet, with lots of vegetables and healthy fats, is considered especially heart-friendly.
- Less salt.
- Exercise. Experts recommend a half-hour a day as a solid baseline.
- High-quality, consistent sleep, including treating problems like sleep apnea.
- Controlling stress and alcohol use.
If couples both have high blood pressure, those changes in diet, exercise and lifestyle may be easier because they can embrace healthier choices together and cheer each other on, NBC medical contributor Dr. Tara Narula said Wednesday on a “Today” show segment.
“What this really does is really say is we can potentially open the door to a novel way of looking for high blood pressure,” she added.
“Go for walks together, cook together without salt. So there are ways that couples can do this together and we can really make a big public health impact.”