What do you do when you can�t hear something that is quietly but steadily wearing out your body? You try and listen more closely. High blood pressure (BP), or hypertension, has reached epidemic proportions among Indians today.
Sanofi�s 2009-10 Screening India�s Twin Epidemic (SITE) study on hypertension and diabetes found that 46% of 15,662 adults tested across urban areas in seven states (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat) and Delhi had hypertension; 20.6% had both diabetes and hypertension, and 34.7% had diabetes. The study was funded by pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis.
The SITE study results reflect the number of Indian adults suffering from hypertension alone, and not as a consequence of any underlying diseases.
The study was carried out by Shashank Joshi and his colleagues at Mumbai�s Lilavati Hospital and Research Centre, Bhatia Hospital and Grant Medical College, and the results were published in the Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics journal in January.
While many of us are aware of the diabetes epidemic waiting to explode, not many of us know that cases of hypertension too are on the rise. Read More
Sujata Kelkar Shetty, PhD, writes on public health issues and is a research scientist trained at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, US.