Protective health factors and incident hypertension in men.

Plain-language summary

This study asked whether a set of five protective habits changes a man's risk of developing high blood pressure. The five were a normal body weight, not smoking, alcohol intake, regular physical activity and good aerobic fitness, and the paper does not say what level of drinking counted as the protective one. It followed 14,568 men who were free of high blood pressure at the start, for an average of 10.7 years, and 1,959 of them were diagnosed during that time. Men with all five habits had a 47 percent lower risk than men without them, and the researchers estimated that if every man in the sample had all five, new cases would fall by 29 percent. Three of the five held on their own: a normal body weight, not smoking and being physically fit. This study is drawn from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study and shares authors with another study in this library, on fitness, body weight and death, so the two are not independent evidence.

Key findings

• A combination of five protective health factors reduced hypertension risk by 47%.
• Normal BMI, not smoking, and being physically fit were independently linked to lower hypertension risk.
• If all men had these five factors, hypertension cases could drop by 29%.