Rising up the social ladder can help to make you healthier as well as wealthier.

Those who are climbing up the social ladder cut their chances of suffering from high blood pressure by a fifth, compared with siblings who stay on the same rung.

While the link between socio-economic position and high blood pressure is well established, this Swedish study is the first to show that crossing the class divide can benefit health in such a way.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm drew their conclusions by examining 6,000 pairs of same-sex twins born between 1926 and 1958. They looked at their parents’ jobs, classifying them as having either “low” or “high” socio-economic status and compared this with the jobs their children held decades later.

The participants’ health, including information on blood pressure, was assessed in 1973 through a postal questionnaire and between 1998 and 2002 by telephone interview.

Photo credit: IPS

Via Telegraph