Heart disease is the in Baltimore and . In 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it accounted for 1 in every 5 deaths. But local doctors expressed surprise Wednesday about a that hypertensive cardiovascular disease — a condition that develops in people who have untreated high blood pressure for many years — was what ended the life of legendary Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones.
“It’s tragic,” said Dr. Janet O’Mahony, an internal medicine doctor who practices out of Mercy Hospital in downtown Baltimore. “But he’s also not our typical poster child for hypertensive cardiomyopathy.
I guess it is a wake-up call for those of us who aren’t professional athletes — to pay attention to our lifestyle and doctor’s visits.” People are more at risk of high blood pressure as they get older and their blood vessels stiffen, O’Mahony said. Though people should start getting their blood pressure checked when they’re young, O’Mahony often tells her patients that 40 is a great age to talk with their doctors about their levels and make sure they’re healthy.
But Jones had just turned 40 before he died. Since hypertension typically doesn’t come along with symptoms, it often goes undetected until someone gets their blood pressure checked by their doctor. O’Mahony noted that she was not Jones’s doctor and has not reviewed his medical records — or his family’s medical history — but she said she’d presume the professional athlete had plenty of access to doctors throughout his football career and even after he retired.
She’d also guess he got plenty of exercise and had access to plenty of healthy food — two factors that are key to managing hypertension and reducing the chances of further health problems, she said. But even though NFL athletes might seem bulletproof, said Dr. Scott Jerome, a sports cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, they also can be vulnerable to heart disease, especially if they don’t maintain a healthy diet or stay at a high weight after retiring.
“Athletics doesn’t protect you from heart disease,” Jerome said. “People say, ‘Well, I’m going to eat bad, then I’m going to run and run off all of that bad stuff, and then I’m all healthy.’” It doesn’t work like that, Jerome said.
For anyone, regardless of physical activity, eating a diet that’s high in salt can increase their blood pressure. Think of your body like a house, he said. If the pressure in your water pipes is too high, a pipe — or your blood vessel — might burst.
But too much pressure is also bad for the house’s infrastructure overtime, Jerome said. Hypertension can put people at risk for kidney damage, retinal disease and cerebrovascular disease. And just like how your biceps might get bigger if you lift progressively heavier weights, your heart muscle can thicken from pushing blood through your body at a high pressure, making it harder for the organ to do its job, Jerome said.
People with diabetes, who smoke or drink alcohol, or who have high cholesterol are at a higher risk of developing hypertensive heart disease. There is also a big racial disparity in those most likely to develop high blood pressure or experience complications from hypertension, like heart failure, a stroke or a heart attack. Black men have a of heart failure compared with white men, and Black women have a 50% higher risk compared with white women.
While some research suggests that people with African ancestry may carry a gene that makes them more , experts say structural racism and social determinants of health are big reasons for the gap. Black Americans are more likely to live in a food desert, where it’s hard to buy healthy groceries for their family, and are more likely to experience the stress of poverty and not have access to health services. suggest that experiencing daily discrimination and racism can have a cumulative effect on a person’s blood pressure.
There’s also some evidence that football players are more likely to have hypertension compared with other athletes, said Dr. Jaideep Patel, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital and director of preventive cardiology at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson. “This may be explained in part by increased risk of concussions, higher body mass index, higher use of supplements and pain medications, and sleep apnea seen among pro football players,” he said in an email.
Some research shows that offensive and defensive linemen — typically the largest athletes on a team — are most at risk for high blood pressure. A 1994 study from the CDC found that retired NFL players experienced a lower mortality rate compared with the general population, but of dying from heart disease. The 6-foot, 3-inch Jones was a lean 192 pounds when he played as a wide receiver for the Ravens.
He was working as wide receiver coach at Alabama State University in New Orleans..
