Against the more severe effects of Covid 19, keep your blood pressure under control. In fact, as emerges from a very recent scientific research published by an American team of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in the journal Hypertension, hypertension increases the risk of hospitalization in case of infection with the Omicron variant, even in people vaccinated with the booster shot (Ebinger et al, Hypertension, 2022).
Omicron and hospitalization
Scientists are always investigating in order to add new pieces to that partially still mysterious puzzle that is the new coronavirus. In fact, even if the omicron variant currently circulating is considered less aggressive than the previous ones, hospitalizations are always observed, even among those vaccinated with the booster shot. Precisely for this reason, science is trying to understand the presence of any conditions that can worsen the course of the new coronavirus infection.
Hypertension doubles the risk of severe course
To shed light on this aspect, scientists have developed the research we are talking about today. The researchers considered the data of nearly 1000 people, all vaccinated with three doses and with a subsequent diagnosis of Covid 19 infection from December 2021 to April 2022. Among these people, 145 had to resort to hospitalization. Well, taking into consideration the health conditions of hospitalized people, it emerged that most suffered from hypertension and did not have other risk factors. The presence of high blood pressure has been shown to increase the risk of hospitalization by 2.6 times. High blood sugar and obesity, although risks to health in general, have not proved so decisive in increasing the risk of hospitalization following omicron infection.
Conclusions
Therefore, high blood pressure is a risk factor to consider when trying to understand the causes of severe course following infection with the new coronavirus, Omicron variant. Science will now have to try to understand how hypertension can affect the body and make it more prone to severe course in the event of a Covid 19 infection. Meanwhile, while the research proceeds, it is clear the importance of keeping blood pressure under control, but also of avoiding infection, since hypertension is a condition often ignored but very common among the population and, in case of infection, of promptly contacting your doctor in order to be able to put in place all the most necessary and effective tools against the disease in time. Remember that lifestyle is important to keep hypertension under control, reducing salt and using spices instead, such as ginger, rosemary, parsley, turmeric and basil. But also walking briskly, practicing yoga and swimming help to keep blood pressure under control, as well as some foods and drinks, such as hibiscus tea, herbal tea prepared with olive tree leaves, but also garlic, blueberries, pistachios, not salted. Among the natural remedies, hawthorn helps to regulate blood pressure.
