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Last year was a tough year. Americans have grappled with a global pandemic, the loss of loved ones, quarantines tearing apart social networks, stress, unemployment and depression.

The rise in tensions in the country is probably no surprise.

On Monday, scientists reported that blood pressure readings of nearly half a million adults showed a significant increase last year compared to the previous year.

These measurements describe the pressure that blood exerts on the artery walls. The increased pressure over time can damage the heart, brain, blood vessels, kidneys, and eyes. Sexual function may also be affected.

American Heart Association president, who was not involved in the study, Dr. “These are very important data that are not surprising, but shocking,” said Donald M. Lloyd-Jones.

“Even small changes in average blood pressure in the population can have a huge impact on the number of strokes, heart failure events and heart attacks we will see in the coming months,” he added.

Study, published as a research letter The article, published in the journal Circulation, is a clear reminder that chronic health conditions still need to be managed, even in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 785,000 Americans and disrupted access to healthcare.

Almost half of American adults have hypertension or high blood pressure; this is a chronic condition called the “silent killer” because although it produces few symptoms, it can have life-threatening consequences.

Hypertension can also put people at risk of serious illness if they become infected with the coronavirus. (NS Evidence for this link is mixed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

The new study, by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic and Quest Diagnostics, examined data from hundreds of thousands of Quest employees and their spouses who participated in a company wellness program that monitors blood pressure and other health indicators such as weight. Participants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia included people with high blood pressure and normal blood pressure at the start of the study.

Preventive cardiologist and lead author Dr. “We’ve observed that people don’t exercise a lot, don’t get regular care, drink more and sleep less during the pandemic,” said Luke Laffin. Center for Blood Pressure Disorders at Cleveland Clinic. “We wanted to know, do their blood pressure change during the pandemic?”

The researchers found that blood pressure measurements changed little from 2019 to the first three months of 2020, but increased significantly from April 2020 to December 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

Blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) and consists of two numbers. The first number is the systolic pressure when the heart is contracting, and the second number is the diastolic pressure when the heart is resting between beats. Normal blood pressure is said to be 120/80 mm Hg or less, but there has been disagreement about optimal levels for decades.

The new study found that the mean monthly change from April 2020 to December 2020, compared to the previous year, was 1.10 mm Hg to 2.50 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure and 0.14 to 0.53 for diastolic blood pressure.

The increases were for both men and women and for all age groups. Greater increases in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure were seen in women.

The average age of study participants was just over 45, and just over half were women. But critics said the failure to include information about participants’ race and ethnicity was a key weakness in the study, as hypertension is much more common among Black Americans than white or Hispanic Americans.

Blacks were also disproportionately affected by the epidemic. Dr. Laffin said that information on race and ethnicity was only available for 6 percent of those surveyed, so an analysis would not be meaningful.

But Dr., a cardiologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and author of the national blood pressure guidelines published in 2017. Kim Williams said there’s a big difference between Black Americans and white and Hispanic Americans when it comes to hypertension.

“The hypertensive condition has been an epidemic in the African-American population for decades,” he said. “Our treatments have improved and our attempt to search for it has improved, but the gap is widening. And we know that the pandemic has affected different cultures and different aspects of society in different ways.”

Dr. Laffin and colleagues said the reasons for the overall increase in blood pressure are not clear. Causes include increased alcohol consumption, decreased exercise, increased stress, decreased doctor visits, and less adherence to medication regimen.

The researchers dismissed a possible effect of weight gain, which is known to raise blood pressure, by saying that the men in the study lost weight and the women did not gain more weight than usual.

But other experts have cautioned that average figures for weight gain may mask gains in some segments of the population.

Dr. “It’s probably multifactorial,” said Lloyd-Jones, referring to the overall increase in blood pressure. “But I think the critical piece is we know that many people lose touch with the healthcare system and lose control of their blood pressure and diabetes.”

Dr. Noting that Americans should pay more attention to overall health and the management of underlying medical conditions despite the pandemic, Laffin added that the penalty for not doing so may be longer than the coronavirus itself.

“There are also public health consequences for not seeing your doctor regularly, making poor dietary choices, and not exercising,” he said. “This is potentially more profound if we consider the long-term effects.”