Number of people with high blood pressure has doubled globally, large study finds

It's additionally straightforward to measure, however many people are evidently not getting even this fundamental degree of care in wealthy and poor nations alike, the study printed within the Lancet medical journal finds. The consequence: 8.5 million deaths yearly, in accordance with the World Health Organization. High blood pressure causes stroke, coronary heart failure and failure of different organs such because the kidneys.

The researchers checked out information overlaying 184 nations. The quantity of people with high blood pressure doubled from 648 million in 1990 to just about 1.3 billion by 2019, they discovered.

"Policies that enable people in the poorest countries to access healthier foods—particularly reducing salt intake and making fruit and vegetables more affordable and accessible—alongside improving detection by expanding universal health coverage and primary care, and ensuring uninterrupted access to effective drugs, must be financed and implemented to slow the growing epidemic of high blood pressure in low- and middle-income countries," Ezzati mentioned in an announcement.

Many high-income nations, together with Canada, Switzerland, the UK and Spain reported their numbers of people with hypertension at all-time lows, however low- and middle-income nations comparable to Paraguay and central European nations together with Hungary, Poland, and Croatia had high charges. Canada and Peru had the bottom charges of high blood pressure. "Hypertension prevalence was highest throughout central and eastern Europe, central Asia, Oceania, southern Africa, and some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean," the workforce wrote.

Overall, just below a 3rd of women and men globally ages 30 to 79 had high blood pressure, the study discovered.

"The pandemic of cardiovascular disease has received less attention in the last 18 months but reflects concerning worldwide trends in unhealthy lifestyle choices such as high fat, sugar, salt and alcohol intake, sedentary lifestyles with avoidance of exercise, and smoking, all of which lead to higher blood pressure and bad cholesterol levels that cause damage to the blood vessels that supply the heart and brain," mentioned Robert Storey, a professor of cardiology on the University of Sheffield who was not concerned within the study.