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Talking on the phone for 30 minutes or more a week is linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure, according to a new study.
Phones and heart health don’t mix. This is at least what emerges from a new study, published in the journal “European Heart Journal Digital Health”. Concretely, talking on a mobile for 30 minutes or more per week would increase the risk of suffering from high blood pressure by 12%.
A risk of hypertension that can increase by 25%!
To arrive at this theory, the researchers examined the link between the time spent on the telephone and the occurrence of high blood pressure, after adjusting for other known risk factors (“age, gender, body mass index, race, deprivation, family history of hypertension, education, smoking status, blood pressure, blood lipids, inflammation, blood sugar, kidney function and use of medications to lower cholesterol or blood sugar“).
A total of 212,046 adults between the ages of 37 and 73 were included in the analysis. Important detail: none of them suffered from hypertension at the start of the study.
All candidates also reported their call time via a questionnaire.
Result ? During 12 years of follow-up, 13,984 participants developed hypertension.
“Cell phone users had a 7% higher risk of hypertension than non-users. Those who talked on their mobile for 30 minutes or more per week had a 12% higher likelihood of developing new high blood pressure than participants who spent less than 30 minutes on the phone“, summarize the researchers.
More specifically, “a weekly use time of 30-59 minutes, 1-3 hours, 4-6 hours and more than 6 hours was associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure by 8%, 13%, 16% and 25%, respectively“.
Limit his telephone conversations to preserve his heart?
Important fact: the researchers did not observe any particular effect of the method of use (hands-free kit, etc.) and the results proved to be similar, regardless of the candidate’s sex.
Finally, people at high genetic risk who spent at least 30 minutes a week talking on a mobile seemed to be at higher risk for hypertension.
“Our results suggest that talking on a mobile may not affect the risk of developing high blood pressure as long as the weekly call time is less than half an hour. Further research is needed to replicate the results, but in the meantime it seems prudent to keep mobile phone calls to a minimum to maintain heart health.“, concludes Professor Qin, one of the main authors.
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