Here’s a roundup of news and the latest research in cardiovascular health.

Housework and your blood pressure

I’m sorry to report that housework is good for your heart, according to a March 2022 study by the University of California – San Diego.

Compared to women with less than two hours per day of daily life movement, those women with at least four hours of daily life movement had a 43% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, 43% lower risk of coronary heart disease, 30% lower risk of stroke and notably, a 62% lower risk of cardiovascular disease death.

-University of California – San Diego

Researchers defined “life movement” as being up and around the house – cleaning, doing laundry, gardening, cooking and even self-care like showering. Basically, just moving your body.

Basically, ALL MOVEMENT counts toward the prevention of disease.

So it doesn’t have to be housework. But it could be, if that is how you find your joy!

Link Between Blood Pressure and Diabetes

An international team of researchers finally cracked the link between blood pressure and diabetes. Led by the universities of Bristol, UK, and Auckland, New Zealand, the February 2022 study identifies a protein cell called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which operates the body’s control of both blood sugar and blood pressure.

“GLP-1 is released from the wall of the gut after eating and acts to stimulate insulin from the pancreas to control blood sugar levels. This was known but what has now been unearthed is that GLP-1 also stimulates a small sensory organ called the carotid body located in the neck.”

According to one researcher: “We’ve known that blood pressure is notoriously difficult to control in patients with high blood sugar, so these findings are really important because by giving GLP-1 we might be able to reduce both sugar and pressure together, and these two factors are major contributors to cardiovascular risk.”

In my own research (which is much less scientific and based on the results from only two people – me and my husband – we found that habits we incorporated into our lives to lower my blood pressure naturally also effectively lowered my husband’s A1C – the measure doctor’s use to decide if you have diabetes or are in danger of diabetes.

Knowing this link exists is important in the formation of medications that could target both at the same time. If you are hoping to treat both naturally, you can use this to formulate what your habits should look like. For instance, cutting out sugar.

Men Who Recognize Anger at More Risk

Those of us who have high blood pressure KNOW that there is a psychosomatic element. We just know.

But in a March 2022 study from the University of Konstanz in Germany, researchers concluded that “men with essential hypertension more often recognized angry expressions when they looked into the faces of others.”

In this study, 145 men were studied. Some had hypertension, some did not. Pictures of people expressing different emotions like fear, happiness and sadness were presented. Participants with hypertension were more able to identify the anger in the pictures than the control group.

So. Empathy leads to high blood pressure? Interesting concept. In the future, the researchers plan to do this same test with women. Can’t wait to hear the results of that.