World Hypertension Day

Blood pressure changes during the day. It is lowest as you sleep and rises when you get up.

World Hypertension Day is a day designated and initiated by The World Hypertension League, which is itself an umbrella to organizations of 85 national hypertension societies and leagues. The day was initiated to increase the awareness of hypertension. This was especially important because of the lack of appropriate knowledge among hypertensive patients. The World Hypertension League launched its first WHD on May 14, 2005. Since 2006, the World Hypertension League has been dedicating May 17 of every year as World Hypertension Day.

High blood pressure (hypertension) is the major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Hence, in 2002, it was named ’the number one killer’ by the World Health Organization (WHO) in The World Health Report.

In short, the risk of stroke is four times greater and the risk of myocardial infarction (a heart attack) two times greater if you have high compared with normal blood pressure. This risk increases the higher the level of a person’s blood pressure.

Control of high blood pressure in the population is very important indeed and the benefit for the public is very large!

Source: ish-world.com