Middle-aged US adults' blood pressures climbed during the COVID-19 pandemic, likely owing to increased stress and alcohol consumption, decreased physical activity and medication adherence, poor sleep, and disrupted access to healthcare, according to a research letter today in Circulation.Cleveland Clinic researchers mined data from more than 460,000 US participants in a national Quest Diagnostics employee wellness program who had undergone blood pressure screening every year from 2018 to 2020.
Average age was 46 years, and 54% were women.From April to December 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, monthly systolic blood pressure readings (the top number of a reading), on average, rose 1.10 to 2.50 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), and