Job stress does not lead to chronic high blood pressure

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A review of the evidence reveals that there is no relationship between stress at work and long term high blood pressure.
Research has shown that there is a link between stress and lack of job control at work and heart disease. High blood pressure is a cause of heart disease. So perhaps it is natural to believe that stress at work must cause high blood pressure. But, according to Dr Samuel J. Mann of Cornell University, this is not the case.

He has reviewed a number of studies and found no link between stress at work and high blood pressure. These studies covered over 100,000 people. Some studies did, however, see a relationship between job stress and diastolic (bottom figure) blood pressure. But there was no impact on systolic (top figure) blood pressure. The latter is thought to be more important in terms of cardiovascular risk. So, although the link between job stress and heart disease has been demonstrated, the cause of this relationship is not high blood pressure.

Source
Current Hypertension Reviews May 2006