Lack of sustained hypertension treatment undermines health objectives

Lack of sustained hypertension treatment undermines middle-income nations’ health objectives

Discontinued hypertension treatment in some of the world’s leading middle-income nations is a significant factor potentially impacting heart issues and mortality, suggests a multi-national university study.

The University of Birmingham and Germany’s Technical University of Munich disclosed their research in Science Translational Medicine based on data from individuals aged 40-plus in China, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa.

Charting care of those diagnosed with hypertension over five to nine years, they concluded that most who were given treatment and achieved controlled blood pressure subsequently lost control of blood pressure and a sizeable number ceased treatment.

University of Birmingham professor Justine Davies pointed out that hypertension remained the world’s leading cause of cardiovascular disease and early death, affecting a quarter of all adults.

“Two-thirds of people with hypertension live in low- and middle-income countries and these countries in particular face considerable population ageing, which is likely to generate a surge in people requiring hypertension car,” she said. 

“Treating hypertension substantially reduces deaths from cardiovascular disease mortality, yet many countries have crucial gaps in hypertension diagnosis and control.”

The research also identified that of those with hypertension but previously undiagnosed, less than a third achieved a diagnosis over the five to nine year period. Contrastingly, a quarter of untreated people were subsequently treated. 

Assistant professor of Behavioural Science for Disease Prevention and Health Care at the Technical University of Munich Nikkil Sudharsanen said the four nations included in the study comprised nearly 25% of the global population. 

“We found that diagnosis and treatment initiation are major bottlenecks to achieving blood pressure control. Nonetheless, treatment discontinuation and loss of blood pressure control are equally problematic and reveal that we can’t expect long-term hypertension control from interventions that seek to improve diagnosis and treatment initiation without efforts to also keep people in care and their blood pressure controlled over time.”

PIC: los muertos crew