Researchers measured blood pressure in 72 Yanomami people and 83 people from a nearby tribe, the Yekwana. The people ranged in age from 1 to 60 years old.
But a new study suggests that’s not true for the Yanomami, a tribe of hunter-gatherer-gardeners living in a remote Venezuelan rain forest.
The Yekwana have been slightly “westernized,” thanks to missionaries and an airstrip that allows for occasional deliveries of processed food and salt.
The Yanomami had no age-related rise in blood pressure. But the Yekwana’s blood pressure readings began rising during childhood — by about a quarter of a point per year, on average.
As the authors suggest, “a rise in blood pressure may not be natural but rather a consequence of unnatural Western exposures”.
