High blood pressure ails 1 in every 8 Indians over 30, shows study

NEW DELHI: Around one of every eight people in India have high blood pressure, according to a Union health ministry preventive health programme that screened 22.5 million adults across 100 districts in India in 2017, a significant increase from the one-in-every-11 number thrown up by the National Family Health Survey (2015-16), highlighting the havoc wreaked by modern lifestyles on people.

The survey was largely conducted in rural areas. The numbers are however, lower than what they are in other countries. According to the World Health Organisation, one in every three people in the US and one in four in the UK suffer hypertension.

The screening, which started earlier this year, is part of an effort to conduct populationbased screening for common noncommunicable diseases such as hypertension (chronic high blood pressure), diabetes and cancers of the breast, cervix and oral cavity in people older than 30.

According to the survey, 8.6% of India’s population (10.4% men, 6.7% women) has hypertension. What’s alarming about the India finding that the majority of the population screened lives in rural areas, where hypertension has so far not been an overriding concern. “Hypertension rates are much higher in urban areas, where a smaller screening done by the Cardiological Society of India found one in four people with hypertension, which is comparable with developed countries,” said Dr Ashok Seth, chairman, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi.