And when is the last time you had it measured?
Reason is: a study (from Canadian researchers and which
was published recently in the Journal of
the American Medical Association) involving 1400000 people of varying
socio-economic status and living in 17 countries has concluded that only half the people who
suffer from high blood pressure (HBP) actually know that they have this
condition, not that much of a surprise really when you consider that for the
vast majority of people with HBP, there are no symptoms.
But just as bad, I think, only 1/3 of those who do know of
their HBP are treating it adequately.
In other words, even if you know you have HBP, for varying
reasons including the fact that not enough people with HBP check their blood
pressure often enough (or at all), over 2/3 of people who are at significantly
higher risk of all those complications associated with HBP - most notoriously
strokes (HBP is always listed as the main preventable risk factor for strokes),
kidney damage, heart attacks, and dementia – are not looking after their
relatively easily-treated problem well enough.
Everyone should get their BP checked regularly.
But anyone with HBP should do that often and should make
sure that their BP is being adequately treated.
