Over 30 years the number of hypertensive patients in the world has doubled: half of them do not know about the disease

Over the past 30 years, the number of people with hypertension (high blood pressure) has doubled. In total, nearly 1,3 billion suffer from this disease. More than half of them do not receive the necessary treatment, and almost every second does not even know about their illness. Writes about it with the BBC.

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Diagnosing hypertension is fairly easy at home, maintaining normal blood pressure is relatively inexpensive even in developing countries, and the typical complications of hypertension—stroke, heart attack, heart failure, and kidney failure—are among the most common causes of death, claiming about 18 million lives each year.

This is the conclusion scientists have come to in their large-scale research ever conducted in this area. The authors of the work collected and analyzed a colossal amount of data: the results of blood pressure measurements in 104 million patients from around the world, from 1990 to 2019.

According to statistics, men suffer from hypertension much more often than women (51% and 41%, respectively), but they visit a doctor much less often. According to the study, almost two-thirds of men suffering from high blood pressure (62%) are not treated at all.

The worst is in Eastern Europe, where seven of the 10 countries with the highest incidence rates are located at once. In Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Belarus, Croatia and Serbia, at least half of men between the ages of 30 and 79 suffer from high blood pressure. The study involved 184 states.

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“In Eastern European countries, the problem of arterial hypertension (its high prevalence) is traditionally more acute than, say, in the USA and Great Britain,” notes Yulia Balanova, leading researcher at the National Medical Research Center for Therapy and Preventive Medicine and one of the co-authors of the study.

According to her, such a rapid increase in the number of hypertensive patients around the world is largely due to the gradual aging of the population: "With age, the incidence of hypertension increases, and the increase in the number of the elderly increases the burden on the health care system."

Starting point

“Our data show that, firstly, those who do not know about their disease are not treated - and these are often insufficiently educated men,” says Balanova. - Secondly. hypertension is called the silent killer because it often has no symptoms. And thirdly, these are often individuals who drink alcohol excessively.”

The level of awareness of the problem, according to Yulia Balanova, generally leaves much to be desired. For example, almost everyone will immediately unmistakably name the normal body temperature. What about normal blood pressure readings?

They vary slightly in different countries, however, the All-Russian Scientific Society of Cardiology believes that hypertension begins when the patient's pressure normally exceeds 140/90 mm Hg. Art.

This is "the so-called starting point, after which there is a fairly rapid increase in the number of unwanted events."

"Remove the salt shaker from the table"

To better explain the problem to a hypertensive patient, British doctors usually compare his cardiovascular system with a boiler, where scale gradually accumulates (which inevitably increases water pressure, or with an over-inflated car wheel, which has a much higher chance of bursting.

At the same time, in order not to miss the onset of the disease and prevent it from causing irreparable damage to the body, most middle-aged people simply need to be aware of this danger and regularly measure their blood pressure. After all, stopping any disease at the initial stage of development is much easier - and in the case of hypertension, the patient can often help himself without any medications.

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“Here it is appropriate to recall the expression “risk factors do not hurt.” Low physical activity, insufficient consumption of vegetables and fruits, excess salt consumption - this is an incomplete list of risk factors for arterial hypertension. It is very important that these are modifiable risk factors, that is, a person can achieve their elimination from his life himself,” notes Yulia.

Salt is perhaps the main enemy of hypertension, since it has long been convincingly proven that the development of the disease is closely related to the amount of salt consumed daily. According to WHO recommendations, you can eat no more than a teaspoon (5 g) per day. In reality, the global average is twice the norm.

“Eastern wisdom says that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” recalls Yulia Balanova. — In our case, a step towards reducing the risk of developing cardiovascular accidents. And on a family scale, the first step is to simply remove the salt shaker from the table.”

Prevention

According to the recommendations Ministry of Health of Ukraine To prevent hypertension, it is enough to take a few simple steps.

Measure blood pressure periodically and monitor for associated symptoms. Most often, hypertension is accompanied by headache (most often in the occipital or parietal part), tinnitus, darkening of the eyes and dizziness, pain in the heart, increased heart rate (more than 90 times per minute in a calm state) and a feeling of suffocation.

Maintain a healthy weight. You can calculate your optimal body weight using a simple formula: BMI = weight in kg/height squared in meters. For example, the calculation for a person weighing 80 kg and height 180 cm would look like: BMI = 80/1.8 × 1.8 = 24,7. BMI in adults indicates the following: <18,5 - indicates that a person is underweight, 18,5-24,9 - equivalent to normal body weight, 25-29,9 - indicates overweight, ≥30 - is a sign obesity.

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Give up alcohol and smoking. There is no safe dose of alcohol. Therefore, any alcohol consumption is dangerous: the more alcohol consumed, the more blood pressure rises.

Smoking is no less dangerous. In the first minute after smoking a cigarette, blood pressure rises. Cerebral stroke and coronary heart disease in smokers occurs 2-3 times more often than in those who do not smoke.

Exercise regularly. Average physical activity is considered to be regular physical activity, lasting at least 30-40 minutes 3-4 times a week. In people with a sedentary lifestyle, the risk of arterial hypertension is 20-50% higher than in physically active people.

Exercise also helps reduce the effects of stress, another factor that leads to high blood pressure. Light running, swimming, yoga, meditation and techniques aimed at unloading the nervous system will reduce the risk of developing hypertension.

Eat foods rich in potassium. A diet high in potassium can help lower blood pressure by helping to flush excess water from the body and dilate blood vessels. Potassium-rich foods: cereals (especially buckwheat, oatmeal, millet), legumes (soybeans, beans, peas), fruits (apricots, grapes, peaches, watermelons, black currants, rose hips, including dried dried apricots, raisins, prunes, dates), vegetables (zucchini, beets, carrots, eggplants, potatoes), herbs (onions, parsley, dill, lettuce, etc.).

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