Adopting a healthy lifestyle has beneficial effects on lowering blood pressure (BP) and cardiovascular risk, regardless of an individual's genetic predisposition to raised BP. In a study involving 277,005 individuals from the UK Biobank, investigators scored the participants according to both lifestyle factors (BMI, diet, alcohol consumption, smoking status, sodium excretion, and sedentary behaviour) and a genetic risk score involving 314 loci associated with high BP. A healthy lifestyle was strongly and inversely correlated with systolic and diastolic BP levels and with incident cardiovascular disease (P < 10−320 for each). Participants with a healthy lifestyle had approximately 3.5 mmHg lower systolic BP and 30–33% lower risk of cardiovascular disease across the low, medium, and high genetic risk groups compared with those with an unfavourable lifestyle. “Given the importance of population-wide lifestyle modification, the use of genetic information for risk stratification merits careful evaluation before it is routinely implemented in clinical practice,” conclude the researchers.