Fight Aging!

Rates of obesity and high blood pressure, or hypertension, follow the increases in wealth and comfort that have spread through much of the world over the past 60 years. Regions that are in the process of transitioning from predominantly poor agricultural populations to a level of wealth and mix of occupations that looks much more like Europe or the US, with South Korea as a good example of the full span of such a transition, see rising life expectancy as well as a rising level of lifestyle conditions. High blood pressure drives the development of cardiovascular disease, and is made worse by excess fat tissue and lack of exercise. Though at present we can't do much about the root cause of age-related increases in blood pressure, which is loss of elasticity in blood vessels, other than fund the most promising research that offers a path to meaningful therapies, we can adopt lifestyle choices that avoid making the problem larger than it has to be. Further, the past 20 years have seen some surprisingly effective advances in controlling high blood pressure through medication, surprising since these results have been achieved without doing much to address the underlying causes, but the very widespread use of these therapies has yet to spread to some of the regions that are now seeing increased incidence of hypertension.

In the past 40 years, there has been a large increase in the number of people living with high blood pressure worldwide because of population growth and ageing - rising from 594 million in 1975 to over 1.1 billion in 2015. The largest rise in the prevalence of adults with high blood pressure has been in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in south Asia (eg, Bangladesh and Nepal) and sub-Saharan Africa (eg, Ethiopia and Malawi). But high-income countries (eg, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Japan) have made impressive reductions in the prevalence of adults with high blood pressure, according to the most comprehensive analysis of worldwide trends in blood pressure to date.

Both elevated systolic (higher than 140 mmHg; first number in blood pressure reading) and diastolic (higher than 90mmHg) blood pressure can be used to make a diagnosis of high blood pressure. Recent research suggests that the risk of death from ischemic heart disease and stroke doubles with every 20 mmHg systolic or 10 mmHg diastolic increase in middle and older ages. Over the past four decades, the highest average blood pressure levels have shifted from high-income western countries (eg, Norway, Germany, Belgium, France) and Asia-Pacific countries (eg, Japan) to LMICs in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and some Pacific island countries. High blood pressure remains a serious health problem in central and eastern Europe (eg, Slovenia, Lithuania). The findings come from a comprehensive new analysis of global, regional, and national trends in adult (aged 18 and older) blood pressure between 1975 and 2015. This includes trends in average systolic (the maximum pressure the heart exerts while beating) and diastolic blood pressure (amount of pressure in the arteries between beats), as well as prevalence of high blood pressure. The Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Risk Factor Collaboration pooled data from 1479 population-based studies totalling 19.1 million men and women aged 18 years or older from 200 countries (covering more than 97% of the world's adult population in 2015).

"High blood pressure is the leading risk factor for stroke and heart disease, and kills around 7.5 million people worldwide every year. Most of these deaths are experienced in the developing world. Taken globally, high blood pressure is no longer a problem of the Western world or wealthy countries. It is a problem of the world's poorest countries and people. Our results show that substantial reductions in blood pressure and prevalence are possible, as seen in high-income countries over the past 40 years. They also reveal that WHO's target of reducing the prevalence of high blood pressure by 25% by 2025 is unlikely to be achieved without effective policies that allow the poorest countries and people to have healthier diets - particularly reducing salt intake and making fruit and vegetables affordable - as well as improving detection and treatment with blood pressure lowering drugs."

Link: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/tl-tln111416.php