A Raise At Work Lowers Blood Pressure

Carl Lowe | Jan 07, 2013 | Comments 0

Money can’t buy happiness, but higher earnings may lower your blood pressure.

Research at the University of California, Davis, shows that workers who earn the lowest wages have the highest risk of hypertension. This was found to be especially true for women and people ages 25 to 44.

“We were surprised that low wages were such a strong risk factor for two populations not typically associated with hypertension, which is more often linked with being older and male,” says researcher J. Paul Leight. “Our outcome shows that women and younger employees working at the lowest pay scales should be screened regularly for hypertension as well.

“(Our results mean) that if there were 110 million persons employed in the U.S. between the ages of 25 and 65 per year during the entire timeframe of the study — from 1999 until 2005 — then a 10 percent increase in everyone’s wages would have resulted in 132,000 fewer cases of hypertension each year,” he adds.