17th May: WORLD HYPERTENSION DAY
Written by Sneh Chaudhry on May 17, 2022
Every year, May 17 is dedicated to World Hypertension Day (WHD).
The purpose of the WHD:
- To motivate the common public to regular checkups of their blood pressure at least once a year.
- To encourage the people having hypertension on a global basis to go to their health practitioner for regular checkups and proper treatment.
- To promote all the common public, especially youths and young people to maintain their normal weight, normal cholesterol level, normal blood pressure, healthy living, healthy eating, regular physical exercise and etc.
- To encourage people to leave their bad habits like drinking alcohol, lazy routine, oily and fatty diet, fried and spicy diet, smoking, obese, overweight and etc.
Hypertension is high blood pressure. The force of blood flowing through your blood vessels is consistently too high. Hypertension is sometimes called the ‘silent killer because it produces no symptoms and could go unnoticed and untreated for years.
Hypertension is a public health epidemic.
- Approximately 4 in 10 adults over age 25 have hypertension and in many countries another 1 in 5 have pre-hypertension.
- An estimated 9/10 adults living to 80 years of age will develop hypertension.
- One half of blood pressure-related disease occurs in people with higher levels of blood pressure even within the normal range.
These are the numbers to watch when you have had your blood pressure tested:
- Normal: Under 120/80
- Prehypertension: 120/80 to 139/89
- Hypertension Stage 1: 140/90 to 159/99
- Hypertension Stage 2: 160/100 or higher
- Hypertension Crisis: Above 180/110
HOW TO OBSERVE
Get your blood pressure tested. Some drug stores have do-it-yourself testing stations.
Strive to exercise more and eat better to combat hypertension.
HISTORY
World Hypertension Day is an initiative of the World Hypertension League (WHL), a part of the International Society of Hypertension. WHL is the day to increase the common public awareness about hypertension. The group launched the campaign of World Hypertension Day first time on May 14 in 2005 however it moved to May 17 in 2006.
