In the first study of its kind, researchers evaluated thousands of heterosexual couples in the US, England, China and India to determine whether married couples mirror each other’s blood pressure status. Their results showed that wives whose husbands had high blood pressure were 9% more likely to have high blood pressure in the US and England, 19% more likely in India, and 26% more likely in China. Similar results were found in husbands whose wives had high blood pressure. Although we need more research on this relationship, it may be indicative of emotional contagion at work on a large scale: stress is known to contribute to high blood pressure1At last.
