A WHO study says that globally, cardiovascular disease accounts for approximately one third of the total deaths. Out of this, complications of hypertension is responsible for at least 45% of deaths.
India is placed at a higher risk due to lack of Hypertension awareness, treatment and control status, with only half of the urban and a quarter of the rural hypertensive individuals being aware of its presence.
-Ganesh Shankar, Data consultant @ eKincare
Silent Killer!
Hypertension rarely has any symptoms in the early stages and many people go undiagnosed. Often referred as silent killer, there are instances where people with dangerously high blood pressure levels have showed no signs or symptoms. Therefore it is important for everyone to check and track their blood pressure regularly to be able to detect Hypertension early.
If hypertension is detected early it is possible to minimize the risk of heart attack, heart failure & stroke and kidney failure.
Lifestyle disease!
A major reason for Hypertension are lifestyle factors like –
- Unhealthy diet,
- Harmful levels of alcohol use and tobacco
- Lack of physical exercise
- Poor stress management.
Hypertension in combination with other metabolic risk factors like diabetes, being overweight or obese and high cholesterol increases the vulnerability of developing major cardiovascular events.
Hypertension trends on eKincare:
Insights from our platform also back the assumption that Hypertension is majorly caused by lifestyle factors and the fact that it is a silent killer, with a major part of our subscribers not being aware of that they might be Hypertensive.
19% of eKincare user base is Hypertensive!
From our user base, we see that only 29% are normal with the remaining population either showing signs of pre-hypertension or already in hypertension stage.
*25-55 years is the age group under consideration here.
Validating the fact that hypertension is a silent killer, we see that though major population is hypertensive, they show no signs or not aware of the risk. We have come across cases where individuals had systolic blood pressure of more than 180 and are unaware of the condition.
Lifestyle a major cause!
Surprisingly we see that Hypertension is more rampant even in the lower age group below 30 years with only 34% under normal condition –
Considering age’s impact on hypertension (It jumps from 15% in <30 yrs group to 38% in 50-55 yrs group), it is recommended that all adults should check their blood pressure and know their blood pressure levels.
We also see that prevalence of Hypertension is more in users who smoke/ consume alcohol/ are overweight or obese, indicating that unhealthy lifestyle is a major cause for Hypertension –
*Only lower age group people (25 yrs – 35 yrs) is considered to assess the lifestyle impacts.
How eKincare helps?
Considering the significant health and economic gains attached to early detection of hypertension, eKincare plans to leverage its rich data set to come up with a hypertensive risk predictor. Based on the risk factors of the person, quantifying each of it’s impact to help people reduce the risk and also encourage the ones in high risk zone to take preventive checks & measures.
For some people, lifestyle changes are not sufficient for controlling blood pressure and prescription medication is needed. Self-monitoring of blood pressure is recommended for better management of hypertension. eKincare for this purpose has provided a timeline feature on the platform that lets you track your blood pressure with time.
Assess, track and stay informed about your health with eKincare.
#Thinkhealth blog 