Keeping up with the Joneses could send your blood pressure soaring
KEEPING up with t he Joneses isn’t just bad for your bank balance – it can also take its toll on your health.
A study has found that being less well off than our neighbours makes us more likely to develop high blood pressure.
Having wealthier people living next door starts to send it soaring from the age of just 30.
This stress then builds up throughout adult life, raising the risk of developing dangerously high blood pressure by retirement.
But after the age of 65, the effect seems to fade away, perhaps as we start to rethink what is really important in life.
In the first study of its kind, Singaporean researchers looked at the blood pressure of more than 150,000 people and compared their wealth with that of those living nearby.
Wealth was measured by expenditure rather than reported income. This means that unofficial earnings were taken into account, as well as the flashy cars, expensive jewellery and other luxury goods that can fuel envy.
Weight, height, having a stressful job and other factors that can affect blood pressure were considered. The fact that some poorer people with health problems may move to a richer area for access to better medical care was also factored in.
The analysis found that from the age of 30, those who were less well off were more likely to have higher blood pressure than their wealthier neighbours.
By the age of 55, this increase was enough to mean they were more likely to be diagnosed with hypertension, where blood pressure is higher than the recommended level, increasing the risk of heart attacks, strokes and a host of other illnesses.
Someone with neighbours twice as wealthy as them was 20 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with hypertension than someone who was just as well off as those around them, the Journal of Happiness Studies reports.
Past the age of 65, the link between high blood pressure and comparative wealth disappeared.
Researcher Hai Nguyen said that people in their late 50s and early 60s may be particularly prone to assessing their achievements and comparing themselves to others.
He said: ‘I speculate that when people approach the age of retirement, they have time to reflect and tend to take stock of what they have achieved and what they have not, and they might do this in comparison with their neighbours.
‘If their achievements fall short of their neighbours’, they might become unhappy or depressed and more likely to get hypertension.’
He believes that post-65, people become less concerned about how they compare to their neighbours.
Dr Nguyen, of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore, said that while we can’t control who moves in next door, more can be done to encourage people to save for their retirement to help them feel more secure in their later years.