Breaking: People in High-Pressure Job More Prone to High Blood Pressure
CNN seems baffled by the discovery that professional football players are more prone to high blood pressure than other American men. The mystery lies in the prevalence of borderline high blood pressure among NFL players and neither the reporter nor the doctor who conducted the study seem to be able to figure out why.
“So our lean players who play defensive back and wide receiver, they have prevalence of prehypertension just as common as the really big guys playing offensive and defensive line,” says Tucker. “So there’s something that we’re trying to investigate now that accounts for elevated blood pressures in our active players that is not accounted for by size alone– there’s got to be something else.”
Yeah, that’s a real puzzler right there. What could that reason be? The author suggests the “something else” could be drugs, sleep apnea, diet, or their workout routines. It’s obvious she doesn’t know a lot about football.
There aren’t many careers where a person’s job performance is under constant review not only by their bosses but also by millions of football fans who are more than happy to rip them a new one if they make even one small mistake. Keep in mind that professional football players enter a lesser version of that pressure-cooker when they are kids and the scrutiny only ramps up through high-school and college. By the time they hit the tender age of 21, they’re playing before a worldwide audience of people who take their mistakes personally.
I imagine that being in the spotlight for almost your entire life just might raise a person’s blood pressure a tick over the years. It’s surely not the only reason, but you can’t honestly tell me that it doesn’t account for a good bit of the problem. I wonder why that’s such a mystery to a doctor who actually works around football players all the time.
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Category: My Beloved Redskins
