While our health services focus primarily on diseases like malaria, polio and HIV/AIDS, another deadly medical condition – hypertension – is ruining many lives. Hitherto known to be prevalent among the elderly, hypertension has since spread to a new age group – the young people. Even children are now vulnerable. Managing the situation effectively calls for a concerted approach from the government and stakeholders in the health sector.
However, hypertension is a global scourge. According to World Health Organisation statistics from the 2015 World Health Day, hypertension is responsible for an estimated 45 per cent of deaths from heart disease and 51 per cent of deaths from stroke annually. This is unnerving.
Also of real concern is the fast rate at which the scourge is rising here. Emmanuel Ekunno, the Executive Director, Fight The Good Fight Against Hypertension (an NGO), said, “When we screen 100 people, 39 per cent of them have hypertension. Curiously, they are young people. In our clinic at times, six out of 10 persons screened have hypertension.” A new study also estimates that one-third of the Nigerian population (or about 50 million people) suffers from the disease.
Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, is an abnormal exertion in the force of the blood against the walls of the blood vessels. In hypertension, the blood pushes hard against the vessels, the heart and other organs. Medically, the condition occurs when the systolic reading (the pressure as the heart pumps blood around the body) is over 140 mmHg (millimetres of mercury) or the diastolic reading (as the heart relaxes and refills with blood) is over 90 mmHg.
Over time, this high pressure damages the blood vessels, leading to complications like heart attack (or stroke), kidney failure, heart failure, problem with understanding and memory, aneurysm and metabolic disorder. “The number one challenge we have in Nigeria and Africa is heart disease. The major cause of heart disease is hypertension. It’s a killer because once you cross the age of five, you are susceptible to it if you have poor dietary habit,” Kingsley Akinroye, the Executive Director, Nigerian Heart Foundation, said.
Indeed, hypertension is part of the price the young are paying for Westernisation. Urbanisation has made many to tailor their diet to keep up with Western lifestyle, taking to salt-rich diets, which are potentially lethal. While physical salt (sodium) can be measured, experts say that the salt used in preserving processed foods, soft drinks, water and fast foods are more dangerous to health. “The number of young Nigerians we see with high blood pressure during screening is alarming and it is because of Western diets. Young people eat junk,” said Jude Duru-Onweni, a heart specialist.
And, since studies have shown that the black race is more vulnerable to hypertension because these people retain salt more in the body, medical practitioners advise a drastic reduction in salt intake and processed food, even for people whose blood pressure is normal. Other lifestyle risk factors include drinking excessive alcohol, low dietary potassium, and physical inactivity (sedentary living), age, sex and chronic stress.
Often described as a silent killer, hypertension might not show any symptom in the sufferer. However, some people suffering hypertension may have headaches, shortness of breath or nosebleeds, according to doctors. In a developing country like Nigeria, where blood pressure checks might not be easily affordable or accessible, the danger is ever present. WHO said in its Global Health Status (2010) report on non-communicable diseases that among its six regions, Africa has the highest prevalence of hypertension.
This makes it urgent for Nigeria to launch a strategic plan of action to reduce the incidence of the disease. In the United States, where a third of the population over the age of 20 is also afflicted by the ailment, checking the blood pressure is often made free in many health facilities. This is part of the Million Hearts initiative by the US Department of Health and Human Services, which aims to prevent one million heart attacks and stroke in the US by 2017.
Similarly, the US National Lung and Blood Institute widely promotes DASH, an acronym for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (a flexible and balanced eating plan based on research studies sponsored by the institute), while the government also provides incentives to manufacturers to bring down the cost of anti-hypertension drugs. Reducing the cost of the drugs is critical here, as a research by the Nigerian Heart Foundation “found out that 70 per cent of hypertensive patients in Nigeria do not take their drugs regularly because of the cost.”
As with most illnesses, hypertension is better prevented because medical science has no cure as yet for it; it can only be managed by drugs. The recommended tips include checking the blood pressure at least twice a year from the age of 18, exercising, finding time to relax, and making other lifestyle choices in diet, including eating food rich in fruits and vegetables, reducing intake of alcohol and avoiding smoking.
More frequent readings are also advised as an individual grows older. But in addition, making efforts to know blood pressure readings, it is also important, according to health practitioners, for those with high blood pressure to change their lifestyle, and take their drugs religiously to guard against complications, stroke and death.
Punch
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