High blood pressure (BP) can knock several years off a person’s life, confirm study findings published in the journal Hypertension.

Elevated BP is a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality, say the researchers, led by Oscar Franco (University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands).

“Suboptimal BP (>115 mmHg systolic BP) is estimated to be responsible for 62% of cerebrovascular disease and 49% of coronary heart disease,” they note.

The team studied the effect of hypertension on life expectancy among 3128 participants of the Framingham Heart Study who had their 50th birthday while enrolled in the study.

Results showed that, irrespective of sex, 50-year-old hypertensives had a shorter life expectancy than normotensives, as well as a shorter life expectancy free from CVD, myocardial infarction and stroke, and a longer life expectancy after the diseases developed.

Total life expectancy for those with normal blood pressure was 5.1 years longer in men and 4.9 years longer in women than in people with hypertension.

The 22% of men in the study who were normotensive also lived 7.2 years longer without cardiovascular disease compared with hypertensives, and spent 2.1 fewer years of their life with CVD.

The researchers conclude: “Our results suggest that optimizing the control of BP to keep it at normal levels and avoiding hypertension could potentially lead to a longer life expectancy, and not withstanding the subsequent aging of the population, also to a reduction of CVD in the general population.”