Study Connects Higher Education to Lower Blood Pressure

Recent research shows that people with more degrees have lower blood pressure.

A study of 4,000 patient records found that both men and women with at least a degree were found to have lower systolic blood pressure readings.

Women with a master’s degree or doctorate had readings 3.26 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) lower than female high school drop-outs. At the same time, men who went to graduate school had readings 2.26 (mmHg) lower than men who did not finish high school.

And the more education you have, the greater the benefit to your blood pressure reading. Both men and women who got degrees at university, but did not continue on to graduate school, were found to have higher (mmHg) levels than people who went to grad school.

The findings may explain the widely documented association between education and lower risk of heart disease in developed countries.

Eric Loucks, the study’s lead author and assistant professor of public health at Brown University in Rhode Island said that blood pressure is “one of the biological underpinnings of heart disease. ”

Loucks feels that policy-makers who want to improve public health should think about improving access to higher education.