Joe Montana tackles hypertension

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By Doug Donaldson

NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana teams up with his family to take on the lifesaving challenge of managing his health.

You are Joe Montana. Yes, you. Or maybe your husband. Or your neighbor. More than likely, someone you know is Joe Montana—just without the four Super Bowl titles and stack of NFL records. Like Joe, one in three adults has high blood pressure and doesn’t realize it. About 1 billion people worldwide and more than 65 million Americans suffer from the affliction, also called hypertension. With no symptoms, high blood pressure may lead to stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure. It contributes to one in every eight deaths, according to the American Heart Association.

Yet Joe, like so many men in their 40s, was blasé about his health.

“For years, I was urging him to go to the doctor,” says Jennifer Montana, Joe’s wife. “I wasn’t even that concerned about health issues, but I just wanted him to have a baseline exam to compare for years later.” 

Joe’s attitude is common. Many men are reluctant to visit the doctor, even for a routine checkup.

“There’s this heroic myth, a John Wayne syndrome, that men aren’t supposed to complain about their health—and it’s wrong,” says Kalman Heller, a clinical psychologist in Needham, Massachusetts.

When Joe played football for the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, he worried about pass pressure, not blood pressure. Team doctors routinely tracked his vital signs, from cholesterol screenings to keeping tabs on postsurgery recovery. Joe toughed out 15 seasons in the NFL, writing his name throughout the record books along the way. During that time, his blood pressure never indicated hypertension. But the potential killer lurked in his arteries.

“A person’s blood pressure only takes a couple of minutes to check, but it’s a very important thing to do,” says Marc Pohl, M.D., head of the clinical hypertension section at Cleveland Clinic. “Checking your blood pressure at a machine in the mall is a good investment for a quarter, but a follow-up with a visit to the doctor is essential. People simply don’t know they have hypertension—only 31 percent of people who have high blood pressure are treated for it.”