Blood pressure management in an ecosystem context

The Hippocratic text On Airs, Waters, Places advises physicians to attend to all aspects of the environment-the seasons, the wind direction, and the soil and water quality, i.e., the ecosystem-when addressing people's health. Hippocrates emphasizes that the ecosystem influences health, disease, and therapeutic choices. Now is the time to consider how this medical wisdom can be integrated into healthcare systems and utilized for people's health. This review discusses how the ecosystem can affect blood pressure (BP) in humans and provides a synthesis of the related resources available in the literature to inform the actions of healthcare providers.