Johannesburg - It has been dubbed “the silent killer”, and it seems South Africa has the highest prevalence of it among our older population.
This is according to a new study titled “Hypertension among older adults in low and middle-income countries: prevalence, awareness and control”, which is published in this month’s issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology.
The study revealed that South Africa has the highest rate of high blood pressure in adults over the age of 50 than any other low- to middle-income country.
The data – which comes from the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health, conducted by the World Health Organisation, and which consists of national household surveys – was to be presented in Pretoria on Tuesday by lead researcher Professor Peter Lloyd-Sherlock.
The study surveyed 35 125 people aged 50 and older from China, Ghana, India, Mexico, South Africa and the Russian Federation between 2007 and 2010.
Of that number, 3 820 participants were from South Africa.
According to the study, hypertension was defined as more than 140mmHg (systolic blood pressure) or more than 90mmHg (diastolic blood pressure) or by taking antihypertensives.
Diastolic pressure is the pressure exerted on the walls of the various arteries around the body in between heartbeats when the heart is relaxed, and systolic pressure measures the amount of pressure that blood exerts on arteries and vessels while the heart is beating.
“We found high prevalences of hypertension in all countries, with the highest being 78 percent for South Africa. Around half sampled were aware of their condition but only a very small proportion achieved blood pressure control,” the study states.
Women in the study had higher odds of hypertension in all countries but China.
“The Russian Federation (with 3 763 participants) was the only country with a high percentage of people aware of their status (72 percent); in none of the other five countries were more than 45 percent of hypertensive people aware,” it states.
Factors associated with awareness, the study explains, included increasing age, being female, and being overweight or obese.
The Star