Zakariyya Adaramola
19 May 2009
The Nigerian Hypertension Society (NHS) says hypertension kills about seven million people across the world every year and has warned that the number may increase if salt intake is not reduced.
The society disclosed this at this year's World Hypertension Day on Sunday. The Day is marked worldwide on May 17th every year to reflect and take measures against hypertension.
The observance of the day was initiated in 2005 by the World Hypertension League-a federation of leagues, societies and other national bodies with the objective of raising awareness on high blood pressure, promoting the exchange of information among them and offering internationally applicable methods and programmes for hypertension control.
This year's theme was: "Salt And Hypertension, The Two Silent Killers. " Speaking at a press conference organized jointly by NHS and Novartis Pharmaceuticals, the NHS president, Prof. Ambrose Isah said hypertension affects over 1.5 billion people in the world and seven million of these people die annually. According to Prof. Isah, hypertension is the major risk factor for heart diseases, stroke and kidney diseases and it is now replacing the communicable diseases as the leading threat to public health world wide.
He said death claimed by infectious diseases would decline by three per cent over the next decade while non communicable diseases such as hypertension that already accounts for 72 per cent of the total global burden of disease would further increase by 17 per cent, much of this in developing countries. His words: " High blood pressure has been described as a global epidemic affecting over 1.5 billion people world wide. In essence, 1 in 4 of the world's population suffers from hypertension.
It is major risk factor for heart diseases, stroke and kidney diseases. Globally,7-8 million persons die every year from this hypertension-related diseases with low income and middle income countries shouldering about 80 % of the cardiovascular-disease burden, half of which is in people of working age." The president of NHS said salt is a major factor in raising blood pressure, adding that high salt (sodium) consumption is estimated to cause hypertension in about 3 in 10 adults.
According to Prof. Isah, it is estimated that if salt intake is reduced by half, it would save approximately 2.5 million deaths a year from strokes and heart attacks. " Reducing sodium reduces blood pressure. Many of these deaths could be prevented by eating less sodium. It is pertinent to point out that sodium (salt) is a constituent of body fluids and tissue and it is essential for life. The case in point is that excess salt consumption is harmful to health", the NHS president said.
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