3 ms·

Why are you convinced that high blood pressure will lessen your lifespan?

by qumpis 3y ago

irjustin 3y ago
I'll need you to point me to data that doesn't show this because even the most basic searches gives plenty of results.
- confidantlake 3y ago
  Seems like high blood pressure is correlated with a lot of unhealthy behavior. So I would speculate someone with only high blood pressure but a normal weight and lifestyle is not going to live decades less than normal. Not a doctor so I may be off base.
  - qumpis 3y ago
    Quick google search revealed about 7 years of decrease in lifespan on average with people who have hypertension, but it also doesn't discriminate between fitness levels and other factors (whether it's treated or not, say), as you say. Anyway, I thought OP had some harder evidence about their own claim, but it seems to be a guesstimate.
  - Gareth321 3y ago
    This is the same as all health research. We don't do controlled studies for ethical reasons, so we end up with lots of confounds. There are lots of clever ways to eliminate those confounds, and current research is considered sufficient to find a correlation between high blood pressure and heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney damage, vision loss, memory loss, and cognitive decline. There could be confounds not yet considered yet, but after reading a lot of research myself, I believe this is causative. HOWEVER, we should put this in context. Apologies in advanced for switching to cholesterol for this example. For example, from memory, total cholesterol above 7mmol/L increases the risk of heart attack by around 20%. Your average typical annual risk of having a heart attack is 0.23%, so high cholesterol increases this to 0.28%. That's still low in nominal terms. Smoking, on the other hand, can increase risk of hart attack by as much as 700%. This raises one's annual risk to 1.61%. Still low in nominal terms, but much higher than high cholesterol. Now consider the many other factors we control, like diet, pollution, exercise, stress, and alcohol and other drugs. These mediate the nominal risk further still. My current position is to lead a healthy lifestyle while individually combating the clearly bad lifestyle choices like smoking. I don't smoke anymore because it's so obviously hazardous that the benefits are not worth it. I might consider taking statins in the future if the side effects are few.

Why are you convinced that high blood pressure will lessen your lifespan?

by qumpis 3y ago

Why are you convinced that high blood pressure will lessen your lifespan?

irjustin 3y ago

I'll need you to point me to data that doesn't show this because even the most basic searches gives plenty of results.

confidantlake 3y ago
Seems like high blood pressure is correlated with a lot of unhealthy behavior. So I would speculate someone with only high blood pressure but a normal weight and lifestyle is not going to live decades less than normal. Not a doctor so I may be off base.
- qumpis 3y ago
  Quick google search revealed about 7 years of decrease in lifespan on average with people who have hypertension, but it also doesn't discriminate between fitness levels and other factors (whether it's treated or not, say), as you say. Anyway, I thought OP had some harder evidence about their own claim, but it seems to be a guesstimate.
- Gareth321 3y ago
  This is the same as all health research. We don't do controlled studies for ethical reasons, so we end up with lots of confounds. There are lots of clever ways to eliminate those confounds, and current research is considered sufficient to find a correlation between high blood pressure and heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney damage, vision loss, memory loss, and cognitive decline. There could be confounds not yet considered yet, but after reading a lot of research myself, I believe this is causative. HOWEVER, we should put this in context. Apologies in advanced for switching to cholesterol for this example. For example, from memory, total cholesterol above 7mmol/L increases the risk of heart attack by around 20%. Your average typical annual risk of having a heart attack is 0.23%, so high cholesterol increases this to 0.28%. That's still low in nominal terms. Smoking, on the other hand, can increase risk of hart attack by as much as 700%. This raises one's annual risk to 1.61%. Still low in nominal terms, but much higher than high cholesterol. Now consider the many other factors we control, like diet, pollution, exercise, stress, and alcohol and other drugs. These mediate the nominal risk further still. My current position is to lead a healthy lifestyle while individually combating the clearly bad lifestyle choices like smoking. I don't smoke anymore because it's so obviously hazardous that the benefits are not worth it. I might consider taking statins in the future if the side effects are few.