In the first-of-its-kind study, researchers evaluated thousands of heterosexual couples across the U.S., England, China, and India to determine if married couples mirrored each other’s blood-pressure status. Their results showed that wives whose husbands had high blood pressure in the U.S. and England were 9% more likely to have high blood pressure, 19% more likely in India, and 26% more likely in China. Similar results were found in husbands with wives who had high blood pressure. While we need more research on this connection, it could be a sign of emotional contagions at work on a large scale: Stress is known to contribute to high blood pressure1, after all.
