Eric Loucks from Brown University has found that more years of higher education correlate with lower blood pressure even decades after graduation — especially for women.
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WASHINGTON: The more years of higher education a person pursues, the lower their blood pressure readings will be for decades afterward, especially among women, a new study has suggested.
The analysis of nearly 4,000 patient records from the 30-year Framingham Offspring Study may help explain a widely documented association in developed countries between education and lower risk of heart disease, according to lead author Eric Loucks, assistant professor of community health at Brown University in Rhode Islad.
“Does education influence heart disease? One of the ways to get at that is to see if education is related to the biological underpinnings of heart disease, and one of those is blood pressure,’ said Louks.
Why the gender differences are pronounced
Controlling only for age, the study found that women with 17 years or more of education - a master's degree or doctorate - had systolic blood pressure readings 3.26 mm of mercury lower than female high school drop-outs.
Men who went to graduate school had systolic blood pressure readings that were 2.26 mm of mercury (mmHg) lower than their counterparts who did not finish high school, said the study, published online in the open access journal BMC Public Health.
That the gender differences are so pronounced and appear to become more so as life goes on suggests that education may have a greater impact on women’s health over their lifetime than on men’s health, Loucks said. That could be because of the correlation between low educational attainment and other health risk factors found in other studies of women.
“Women with less education are more likely to be experiencing depression, they are more likely to be single parents, more likely to be living in impoverished areas and more likely to be living below the poverty line,” Loucks said.
Graduate degree-holders benefit most
The same inverse relationship between education and blood pressure was also seen, although to a lesser degree, in men and women who got associate's or bachelor's degrees at university but did not continue on to graduate school.
They showed greater blood pressure benefits than high school drop-outs but lesser benefits than holders of master's degrees or doctorates, the study found.
Even after controlling for influences such as smoking, drinking, obesity and blood pressure medication, the benefits persisted, although at a lower level.
How to improve public health
The study could help explain the widely documented association in developed countries between education and lower risk of heart disease, said Loucks.
Blood pressure is "one of the biological underpinnings of heart disease", he said, and added that the study contributes to a chorus of others suggesting that policy makers who want to improve public health and are struggling to do it in other ways, might want to look at improving access to education.
“Socioeconomic gradients in health are very complex,” he said. “But there’s the question of what do we do about it. One of the big potential areas to intervene on is education.”
Correlation does not equal causation
Correlation does not equal causation. It scares me how quickly some people, particularly bureaucrats, are so quick to start social engineering projects based on a correlation. In this instance, people who have a university education have been selected by their ability to pass exams - generally a sign of a higher IQ. As a result of the higher IQ, they have a degree, a higher earning potential, a higher living standard, a better diet, more exercise, better lifestyle choices etc. It is these factors that result in a lower blood pressure, not the degree. The degree is merely another consequence of their higher IQ.
Extending the reach of a university education will not magically supply the lower IQ people with the other benefits of a higher IQ (like better lifestyle choices). It will merely debase the value of a degree.
Lower it, are you joking?
Every time I think of my student loans my blood pressure takes of like a Saturn V rocket!
Higher education lowers blood pressure
The classic trap: let's be well aware of the difference between a causal relationship, a common cause, coincidence and randomness. Consider:
1 Educational prosperity permits better diets with less salt?
2 An unconnected genetic link?
3 Reverse causality (absence of hypertension improves brain function so low b.p. encourages higher education)?
4 Observer bias? Those taking the readings obviously received higher education
5,6,7.............
David Miller
IQ,Study and EI
It has been suggested that successful students have a high Emotional Inteligence(EI) score as well as a high Intelligence Quotient(IQ). High EI often means less stress about relationships. Also intense study especially at postgraduate level often leads one into "the zone" which is exremely satisfying and must have a positive effect on ones body. Satisfying ones curiosity is likely be beneficial to ones wellbeing.
cheers Simmo