Western lifestyle, not age, a greater risk for high blood pressure: Study

The Western lifestyle is more responsible for heart disease, the top cause of death worldwide, than age and family history, according to research published Wednesday.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore found that, among two communities in the remote rainforests of Venezuela, the one that was most isolated from Western influences had lower instances of high blood pressure.

“A dogma of cardiology is that blood pressure (BP) increases with age. Yet studies of non-Westernized adults from isolated hunter-gatherer peoples have found little evidence of an age-associated rise in BP,” the authors wrote in a research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Cardiology.

An estimated 75 million Americans have high blood pressure, or hypertension, carrying the serious risk of heart disease and stroke. With poor diet and lack of exercise, health officials rate age and family history as key factors for increasing a person’s risk.

Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death globally, according to the World Health Organization. The Johns Hopkins researchers wanted to evaluate the impact of environmental causes on high blood pressure.

The Yanomami tribe is made up of hunter-gatherers and gardeners and has the least exposure to the outside world, the authors wrote. They have the lowest-known blood pressure measurements.

Neighboring the Yanomami tribe is the Yekwana people, which also is isolated in the rainforest but has contact with outsiders, including missions and an airstrip for planes bringing medicine and “aspects of Western lifestyle,” the authors wrote, including processed foods and salt.

The researchers found that among the two groups, the blood pressure rate among the Yekwana people increased at a steeper rate with age than the more-isolated Yanomami tribe.

The researchers acknowledge that their sample size is small. They evaluated 72 Yanomami people and 83 Yekwana people ages 1 to 60 years old, but said their findings add important evidence to the discussion of environmental-versus-natural causes of hypertension.

“Although our study is cross-sectional and limited by small sample size, it adds to findings in Yanomami adults showing that the rise in [blood pressure] with age may not be natural but rather a consequence of unnatural Western exposures.”