A new study tracking over 200,000 adults found that chronic pain—especially when it spans multiple body regions—significantly increases the likelihood of developing high blood pressure. The findings, published in Hypertension by the American Heart Association, suggest a direct pathway: the more widespread the pain, the higher the risk.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow analyzed data from the UK Biobank, following participants for an average of 13.5 years. Those with chronic widespread pain faced a 75% higher risk of developing high blood pressure compared to people without pain. By contrast, short-term pain raised risk by just 10%, and pain confined to a single location by 20%. When broken down by location, chronic abdominal pain showed the strongest association after widespread pain (43% higher risk), followed by chronic headaches (22%), neck and shoulder pain (19%), hip pain (17%), and back pain (16%).
The Depression Connection
What makes this finding particularly actionable is understanding why chronic pain and high blood pressure are linked. The research reveals that depression plays a significant mediating role. People living with chronic pain are more likely to develop depression, and depression itself raises blood pressure risk. Depression and inflammation together explained roughly 12% of the connection between pain and hypertension—a measurable pathway that opens doors for intervention.
We're a new kind of news feed.
Regular news is designed to drain you. We're a non-profit built to restore you. Every story we publish is scored for impact, progress, and hope.
Start Your News Detox"Part of the explanation for this finding was that having chronic pain made people more likely to have depression, and then having depression made people more likely to develop high blood pressure," said lead author Jill Pell, a public health researcher at the University of Glasgow. "This suggests that early detection and treatment of depression, among people with pain, may help to reduce their risk of developing high blood pressure."
The implications are straightforward: healthcare providers treating chronic pain patients now have reason to monitor blood pressure more closely and screen for depression as a matter of course. Nearly 10% of all study participants developed high blood pressure over the follow-up period, making this a population-level concern worth addressing early.
What This Means for Treatment
The research also raises a practical complication. Many people with chronic pain rely on nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen, which can themselves raise blood pressure—creating a difficult trade-off. This suggests pain management strategies need to be tailored with cardiovascular health in mind, rather than treating pain and blood pressure as separate problems.
The study tracked participants from the UK Biobank, predominantly middle-aged and older white British adults, so the findings may not apply equally across younger age groups or other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Pain was self-reported, which introduces some measurement uncertainty. Still, the scale of the study—over 206,000 people followed over more than a decade—provides solid evidence for the connection.
As high blood pressure remains the leading cause of death globally, recognizing chronic pain as a cardiovascular risk factor could shift how clinicians approach both conditions. The next step is testing whether targeted pain management and depression treatment actually prevent high blood pressure from developing in the first place.
