Blood pressure levels have gone up during the pandemic, with women and older adults experiencing higher increases, according to a new study that used health data from nearly a half million Americans. The findings were published December 6, 2021, in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
“At the start of the pandemic, most people were not taking good care of themselves. Increases in blood pressure were likely related to changes in eating habits, increased alcohol consumption, less physical activity, decreased medication adherence, more emotional stress, and poor sleep,” said Luke J. Laffin, MD, the codirector of the center for blood pressure disorders at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and the lead author of the study, in an American Heart Association (AHA) press release. “And we know that even small rises in blood pressure increase one’s risk of stroke and other adverse cardiovascular disease events.”
These findings are important, and they confirm what doctors are seeing in clinics every day, says Lawrence Phillips, MD, a cardiologist and the medical director of outpatient cardiology at NYU Langone Health in New York City. Dr. Phillips was not involved in the research. “During the COVID pandemic, chronic-condition management, including blood pressure management, has at times been overlooked by patients — and understandably so, as other life stressors have been amplified,” he says.
Nearly Half of U.S. Adults Have High Blood Pressure
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly half of adults in the United States (47 percent, or 116 million people) have high blood pressure, which means they have a systolic blood pressure greater than 130 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) or a diastolic blood pressure greater than 80 mmHg, or they are taking medication for hypertension.
Blood pressure is a measurement of the pressure of blood pushing against the walls of the arteries, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Systolic blood pressure is the top number in a blood pressure reading that indicates how much pressure the blood is exerting against the artery walls with each contraction. Diastolic blood pressure is the bottom number in a blood pressure reading, and it indicates how much pressure the blood is exerting against the artery walls while the heart is resting, between contractions.
If blood pressure stays high for a long time, it can cause damage to organs and increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and kidney failure.
Blood Pressure Levels Increased During the Pandemic
To study changes in blood pressure levels before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers used anonymized health data from 464,585 employees and their spouses or partners who were enrolled in a wellness program. The average age of participants was 46 years old, and 54 percent were women.
Subjects had their blood pressure measured during an employee health screening every year from 2018 through 2020. Participants were categorized …….
Source: https://www.everydayhealth.com/hypertension/blood-pressure-up-in-us-adults-during-the-pandemic/
