“Know Your Numbers!”
World Hypertension Day 2020
It’s World Hypertension Day on 17th May and the world is grappling with a pandemic the modern world had never imagined. Hypertension or high blood pressure is a very common lifestyle condition that increases the risk of developing comorbidities such as strokes, cardiac ailments, and kidney disease. According to the statistics given by the WHO, in the year 2015, 19% of global deaths were linked to hypertension.1
Though initially hypertension was a disease characterized by having blood pressure levels above 130/80 mm Hg, the updated guidelines now define hypertension as a condition characterized by a systolic blood pressure of >140mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure of >90mm Hg i.e. having blood pressure levels above 140/90mm Hg.
When we speak of hypertension in the Indian context, you will be rather shocked to know the prevalence of the disease. According to a study conducted by GBD in the year 2016, hypertension was responsible for 1.63 million deaths in the year 2016.2 When a cross-sectional population-based study was conducted between 2012 and 2014, it was found that nearly 25.3% of people in the country suffered from hypertension.2
The global burden of hypertension has only been increasing and a shocking 75% of people with the condition live in low- and middle-income nations.1 One of the most effective ways to reduce this disease burden is by early detection and affordable measures to help people control it.
By itself, the disease is not fatal but in recent times, we have seen how elevated blood pressure levels can act as a co-morbidity and turn out to be fatal when combined with other conditions. The best example of this is the recent coronavirus pandemic wherein, many of the fatalities had hypertension as comorbidity.
Hypertension and the Future
The World Hypertension Day theme for 2020 is – ‘Know your numbers’. This is a very important message in this year’s theme as hypertension is a silent killer, rarely showing any symptoms in the initial stages and most people are unaware of their blood pressure levels.
The World Health League(WHL) began observing this day way back in 2005 and their main aim to observe this day, each year, is to educate people about the condition and increase awareness about it. ‘Know your numbers’ is more of a call-to-action wherein, they are motivating people to get their blood pressure levels checked regularly and monitor them.
The best way to move forward is the discovery of novel antihypertensive drugs for the treatment of the condition and methods to monitor and prevent the condition in high-risk individuals. It might be rather surprising to most people that the research going on in the field of hypertension has significantly reduced in the past few years for many reasons such as – increased competition in the space, lack of any major discoveries and high cost of developing innovative drugs.
However, with the digital technologies emerging in the way healthcare is delivered and the advances in genomics, the current state of medical affairs surrounding hypertension can be transformed. There is significant hope from Artificial Intelligence that can revolutionise research, treatment, prevention and management of hypertension globally.
Hypertension is a chronic medical condition that can be detected, treated and prevented easily by intervening at the right time and spreading awareness. The global deaths caused by the disease can also be significantly reduced by using modern technology to tackle the disease.
