01 Aug Surprising Finding Links Hypertension to Wealth in Men

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Shingo Yanagiya
Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine
Sapporo, Japan

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Thank you very much for your question. Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases including stroke and ischemic heart disease. Due to the relatively high prevalence of hypertension, there is an increased public burden resulting mainly from cardiovascular disease. It is well known that hypertension is associated with several lifestyle factors, including excessive intake of salt or alcohol, obesity, inactivity, and other personal attributes.

Since socioeconomic status affects individual lifestyles and other factors, differences in socioeconomic status may influence the risk of hypertension. Therefore, it is important to clarify whether the risk of hypertension varies among socioeconomic classes when considering an effective strategy for preventing hypertension. Based on my research of previous reports about the relationship between household income and incident hypertension, evidence is scarce for Japan. So, we investigated this in an employed population in Japan.

 MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Nevertheless, many of previous reports generally said that low socioeconomic status was associated with high blood pressure. However, in our study, for men, household income was positively associated with the incidence of hypertension. On the other hand, for women, there was no significant difference in the risk of incident hypertension according to household income. Probably, it is not always true that those with high household income are less likely to having hypertension. 

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?

Response: Unfortunately, I was not able to determine the reason for the discrepancy in the relationship of interest between men and women and the reason why the positive association between household income and incident hypertension was shown in men. It may be worth identifying the reason of the above. What is more, I would recommend that you study the association between incident hypertension and household income, in employed individuals working daytime hours in other countries. 

MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Response: I attempted to investigate the relationship of interest in male study participants stratified by about 15-year age intervals. As a result, a positive association between household income and incident hypertension was found in male participants aged 35-49 years. As the group with the second highest household income was likely to have the highest hazard ratio among the 4 household income groups (<5.0, 5.0-7.9, 8.0-9.9, or ≥10.0 million Japanese yen /year) of men aged 18 to 34 years, a pattern similar to that observed in all men participating in the study was also likely to be applicable to this age stratum. However, the relationship of interest was null in male participants aged 50-69 years. Unfortunately I don’t know the reason why, so I would like to give it more consideration moving forward. Thank you very much.

Citation:

Abstract presented at the 84th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Circulation Society (JCS 2020).

HOPE: Japanese study of Health, Occupation and Psychosocial factors related Equity 

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Last Updated on August 1, 2020 by Marie Benz MD FAAD