The UAE is, perhaps, the fastest-growing country in the world, a melting pot of different nationalities, cultures, food habits and perceptions.
Life is modern and comfortable but it is also laden with lifestyle challenges such as job insecurities, traffic jams and loneliness — all of which can cause hypertension.
Also known as the “silent killer”, it affects one in four adults globally.
At our doorstep
In the UAE, 30 per cent of the population is at risk of cardiac attacks due to hypertension.
Experts believe the rate is higher in the UAE due to the high diabetes and obesity rates.
Moreover, there are people who are not aware they have hypertension, so the rate is feared to be even higher.
According to the 2005 census data, 52 per cent of the population is between 20 and 39 years of age.
This indicates a vast number of young people who could be living with dangerously high blood pressure (BP).
It’s even silly to ask why. Look around and observe the lifestyle.
There is food everywhere. Go to the food court of any mall and there will be no place to sit.
Go to a park and you will find people sitting on benches and eating.
Combine excessive food consumption, lack of physical activity, stress, obesity and smoking and what you get are lifestyle diseases at a young age.
A car is no longer a “prestige issue” but a necessity. Many residents do not even know if they have a staircase in their building.
The result? The population is growing sideways. With their waist circumferences getting bigger, their chances of getting high BP and diabetes are increasing.
Thousands, if not millions, are already confirmed victims.
Dr Amer Albadri of Belhoul Specialty Hospital, who specialises in internal medicine, says hypertension is very common in the UAE and many of his patients are in their early thirties and include Arabs, Indians, Filipinos and others.
“People from the Philippines have a strong genetic predisposition towards high BP and many come to the emergency [ward] in a state of malignant hypertension,” Dr Albadri says.
“In malignant hypertension, the person has very high, difficult-to-control blood pressure.
This could be very dangerous as the patient is at risk of suffering a hypertensive stroke, [which can] lead to paralysis,” he adds.
End organ damage
Dr Balakrishna Pai from Zulekha Hospital, who is an interventional cardiologist, confirms that the hypertensive population of this country is getting younger.
Many young people are unaware that, if uncontrolled, high BP could eventually damage the eyes, kidneys, blood vessels, heart and even the brain — medically called “the end organ damage”.
Dr Pai is more inclined towards the non-pharmacological approach.
He insists that exercise and diet (more vegetables, fruits, grains, lentils and white meat — fish or chicken) reduces systolic blood pressure by ten and diastolic blood pressure by eight.
Healthy advice
“I advise my hypertensive patients to park their cars a kilometre from the destination and avoid the elevator to the third or the fourth floor.
"This advice holds even for healthy people as a preventive measure,” Dr Pai says.
He adds that those destined to inherit high BP due to genetic factors can get it much later if they do enough physical activity.
Also, the risk of end organ damage will be reduced considerably.
— Medha Bhaskaran is a health care executive based in the UAE
Do it yourself
If you are a young person suffering from high blood pressure, taking regular medication and monitoring your blood pressure are vital.
With modern state-of-the-art, accurate home monitors, you can effectively control your BP.
Here’s an excerpt from the British Medical Journal on home monitoring:
“Self-monitoring has several advantages over clinic measurements — by allowing multiple readings averaged over time and by taking measurements in people’s usual environment, a more reproducible blood pressure value is produced that is devoid of the white coat [elevated blood pressure when a nurse or doctors takes it] and placebo effects.
“More importantly, two outcome studies have shown that self-monitoring predicts cardiovascular outcome better than clinic measurements.
“Preliminary evidence also shows that self monitoring may improve control of blood pressure by improving compliance, as patients become more involved in their care.
"It has also been suggested that self-monitoring might reduce healthcare costs.”
