Have a Kid and Lower Your Blood Pressure

Friday, January 22, 2010 by: Frank Mangano
Tags: parenting, blood pressure, health news

(NewsTarget) Stressed out by your kids? Well according to a new study, your kids may be doing your blood pressure, which is influenced by stress, more good than harm. A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine indicates that, contrary to what you may think, the parent-child relationship lowers blood pressure.

Researchers from Brigham Young University determined this by following approximately 198 adults for a 24-hour period. For 24 hours, the participants wore a blood pressure monitor that kept track of their blood pressure at random points throughout the day.

Of course, there are a number of factors that can contribute to a person's blood pressure. So they took into account specific physical factors when comparing blood pressure measurements to those who did not have children (i.e., age, body mass, gender, exercise, smoking).

According to the researchers' analysis, parents with children had a systolic blood pressure rate that averaged 4.5 points lower than non-parents and a diastolic pressure rate that averaged 3 points lower than non-parents.

The researchers said that while children tend to provide stress to the average parent, the meaning and depth of the parent-child relationship seems to counterbalance that stress.

"While caring for children may include daily hassles, deriving a sense of meaning and purpose from life's stress has been shown to be associated with better health outcomes," said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, the study's lead researcher and psychologist at BYU.

The surge of death rates from hypertension (a 20 percent increase from 1996 to 2006) is no doubt due to a multitude of factors, but there's at least some circumstantial evidence to support Holt-Lunstad's findings. As the rate of people with hypertension has steadily risen, the birth rate in the United States has declined every year since 1990 (with the exception of 2007, the most recent year available, when the birth rate increased 1 percent). What's more, the United States' birth rate is among the lowest in the world. Of 223 countries, the U.S. birth rate is 125th (an average of 2.05 children born per woman). Eight of the top 10 countries in birth rate reside in Africa.

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01...

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-f...

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shot...

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatisti...

About the author

Frank Mangano is an American author, health advocate, researcher and entrepreneur in the field of alternative health. He is perhaps best known for his book "The Blood Pressure Miracle," which continues to be an Amazon best selling book. Additionally, he has published numerous reports and a considerable amount of articles pertaining to natural health.
Mangano is the publisher of Natural Health On The Web, which offers readers free and valuable information on alternative remedies. To learn more visit:
http://www.naturalhealthontheweb.com