World authority on hypertension: Professor YK Seedat passes on at 92

INTERNATIONAL hypertension authority, Professor YK Seedat, described by his colleagues as “an intellectual giant in the field of medicine”, has passed away in Durban at the age of 92.

- YOGIN DEVAN

Professor YK Seedat

The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Emeritus Professor in Medicine will be best remembered for his deep humility; his distinguished role in shaping medical academia; a mind that retained and retrieved with astonishing clarity; and thinking unclouded by bias, guided instead by openness and clarity.

Described as a doyen of medicine in practice and academia, Seedat’s research on hypertension and renal medicine spans 400 articles, 41 chapters in books and over 350 lectures at international level and in national congresses.

He made a notable contribution to studies in hypertension (high blood pressure) prevention and control in sub-Saharan Africa.

Seedat stressed hypertension was more common in black people living in sub-Saharan Africa than any other racial group, and only around 5% to 10% of the population had adequate control of their blood pressure. There were multiple factors that caused hypertension, including excessive salt intake, obesity in middle aged black Africans, and stress. Hypertension was a key cause of strokes, heart failure and kidney failure in people from sub-Saharan Africa.

Seedat’s research during and after apartheid highlighted significant “racial” differences in the causes and prevalence of renal (kidney) disease, arguing that these disparities were linked to environmental, socioeconomic, and lifestyle factors, which were in turn a result of apartheid policies.

He did not claim race was irrelevant; rather, he linked observed differences to social and environmental inequalities.

Yackoob Kassim Seedat was born on February 7, 1934, in Durban.

After matriculating from Sastri College where he was a good debater, he studied in Dublin, Ireland, as an undergraduate and returned to South Africa as a qualified doctor.