Heart Health
Couples often share high blood pressure diagnosis
Research we're watching
- Reviewed by Christopher P. Cannon, MD, Editor in Chief, Harvard Heart Letter; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
If your spouse has high blood pressure (hypertension), there's a fairly good chance that you do as well, new research suggests.
For the study, published Dec. 19, 2023, in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers looked at the incidence of hypertension in nearly 34,000 middle-age and older heterosexual couples in India, China, the United States, and England. Women married to men with hypertension were more likely to have hypertension themselves than women whose husbands didn't have the condition. Likewise, hypertension rates were higher among men whose wives had hypertension compared to men whose wives did not. Rates of this so-called concordant hypertension ranged from 20% to 40% and were slightly higher in China and India.
Couple-focused strategies to address the problem together (like exercise and other lifestyle changes) could be helpful, according to an editorial accompanying the study.
Image: © Rawlstock /Getty Images
About the Author
Julie Corliss, Executive Editor, Harvard Heart Letter
About the Reviewer
Christopher P. Cannon, MD, Editor in Chief, Harvard Heart Letter; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
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