Prevalence of hypertension in the city’s 80-plus population is “very high”, suggests a recently published study, alerting to risk of organ damage due to uncontrolled high blood pressure.
In the study published in the journal of Gerentology and Geriatric Research by researchers from MediCiti Institute of Medical Sciences, researchers found over 80% of the test subjects had hypertension defined as blood pressure higher than 140 mm hg and 90 mm hg.
The researchers studied 200 visibly healthy people aged 80 years who were randomly selected from gated colonies of Hyderabad. Besides capturing blood pressure data, the research team led by Pawan Kumar Sharma found 81.6% men and 84.7% to be hypertensive. The study also determined association of diabetes, asthma, body mass index and heart rate with hypertension.
The researchers found among those with hypertension, the condition was uncontrolled in 53.8%. Uncontrolled hypertension can affect multiple organs of the body including the heart, brain and the kidneys.
Seconding findings of the study, Dr. Pradeep Deshpande, senior nephrologist, said hypertension becomes common as people age. The blood vessels tend to harden with age, which in turn requires the heart to work harder, he said. “In the elderly, hypertension is of the systolic kind. While ageing normally brings about a rise in blood pressure, it is often worsened by behaviour like excessive consumption of salt,” Dr. Deshpande added. Hypertension in the oldest of the elderly had worsened due to poor compliance with medical treatment.
Given that elderly population (aged 60 and above) is expected to increase to over 300 million by 2050 from 104 million as per 2011 census, riding on back of improved healthcare and a bigger life-expectancy at birth, the study called for targeted policies to improve quality of life for this age-group.