Stress doesn't cause high blood pressure after all

11 June 2009

Doctors believe that stress is a major cause of high blood pressure and increased cholesterol – but they may have to think again after new research found no link between the two.

Blood pressure and cholesterol levels have dropped in the past 30 years, but stress levels have risen significantly, a major population study has discovered.

Researchers have been tracking the health of 1,462 women from Gothenburg, Sweden since the 1960s; in that time, the major risk factors of high blood pressure and cholesterol have dropped, and yet stress levels have more than doubled.

Today, 75 per cent of the women in the survey experience stress, compared to just 28 per cent when the study started in 1968.

(Source: University of Gothenburg).

Stress doesn't cause high blood pressure after all

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