High BP among world's biggest killers

High BP among world's biggest killers
4 May 2008, 0354 hrs IST,Kounteya Sinha,TNN

NEW DELHI: High blood pressure, a largely ignored physical condition, is now turning to be one of the world’s biggest killers. What’s worse, it’s causing high mortality among people in developing countries like India and China.

A study to calculate high BP’s real effects has found some chilling facts —about 54% of all strokes, 47% of ischaemic heart disease, 75% of hypertensive disease and 25% of other cardiovascular disease globally resulted from high BP.

Conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and reported in medical journal ‘The Lancet’ on Saturday, the study also estimated that 7.6 million people died prematurely because of high BP in 2001.

The study also breaks the myth that high BP was a major problem in high-income countries, and says that more than 80% of high BP related diseases occur in developing countries like India and mostly among younger adults.

Over 92 million of all disability adjusted life years were also attributable to high BP.

The study says that 52% of deaths from such disorders in India occur before 70 years of age, compared with 23% in established-market economies.

Reacting to the study, Dr Anoop Misra from Fortis hospitals says that hypertension is directly responsible for 57% of all stroke deaths and 24% of all coronary heart disease deaths in India.

"We estimate there are 31.5 million hypertensives in rural and 34 million in urban India. It’s mainly due to high salt intake, obesity, diabetes, stress and genetic factors," he said.

Cardiologist Dr K K Agarwal said even a slight reduction of high BP can greatly benefit people. "If pre-hypertension is reduced, 40% of heart attacks can be prevented. If 5 mm of BP is reduced, 21% mortality can be reduced. For every kg you lose, your BP will come down by 1 mm."

Cardiologist Dr Deepak Natarajan added: "India has a scandalously high number of hypertensives, thanks to the fact that we are the world’s most sedentary nation. Both the poor and the rich are suffering from high BP."

Dr Carlene Lawes from the University of Auckland, who used data from WHO’s Global Burden of Disease study to calculate the statistics, said rates of disease are generally much higher in developing than in developed countries and occur most in people aged 45-69 years.