All you need to know about Hypertension

Hypertension is one of the most common lifestyle diseases today, with every third person we meet, having suffered from it. And experts say that even kids can be victims of high blood pressure. Read on to find out more...

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Hypertension is one of the most common lifestyle diseases today, with every third person we meet, having suffered from it. And experts say that even kids can be victims of high blood pressure. The fact is that in 90% patients there is no known cause for hypertension and this makes it even more important to be alert. Most are not even aware that they have hypertension, which makes the scenario rather grim.

Cause for worry?

Hypertension is likely to end up being an epidemic in the near future, and approximately one-third of our population will suffer from it by 2020, states senior surgeon Dr Ramakanta Panda. He adds, "It has been increasing consistently since 1980. Currently, estimates put the incidence of hypertension to 20 to 40% in urban areas and 12 to 17% in rural areas of India."

Grim statistics

"One in three Indian adults has high blood pressure. Anyone, including children, can develop it," says interventional cardiologist Dr Nilesh Gautam. According to the World Health Statistics 2012 report, India has low rates of hypertension compared to world figures. Here, 23.10% men and 22.60% women above 25 years suffer from hypertension. India also fares better than the global average of 29.20 in men and 24.80 in women respectively.

Dr Panda explains, "However, in absolute numbers, this is a huge population. A bigger problem is that people are normally not aware that they have hypertension. This could potentially be a gray area affecting the numerical estimation."

What is hypertension

Hypertension is defined as a repeatedly elevated blood pressure, exceeding 140 over 90 mmHg — a systolic pressure above 140 with a diastolic pressure above 90, says Dr Panda.