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Fighting hypertension early before it kills you silently
As you finish reading this article, some 75 people â near or far â will have died from hypertension
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s you finish reading this article, some 75 people ' near or far ' will have died from hypertension. Am I exaggerating? Not at all, as globally, about 15 people lose their lives per minute due to hypertension and, therefore, if you need five minutes to read this article, 75 people would have lost their lives to this so-called silent killer within the duration.
The above statistic is calculated based on data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) that concluded nearly 8 million people were killed by hypertension each year. That was nearly five years ago. How about today? Are we better off or even worse? As we commemorate the World's Hypertension Day on May 17, we must question ourselves whether we have sufficiently managed this deadly threat for both ourselves and younger generations?
While hypertension has become a worldwide killing machine, two-thirds of its victims reside in developing countries, including Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Thailand and Myanmar. Indonesia, in fact, has been identified as one of the countries with the highest prevalence of hypertension (in adults aged 25+) ' second to Myanmar.
All these facts suggest that this silent killer is very much alive and well on this part of the world and that we are within its striking distance. Worse still, about 76 percent of hypertension cases in Indonesia are still undetected, as many Indonesians rarely have their blood pressure checked. A seemingly innocent oversight, yet one with deadly consequences. Unless we are inclined to play a game of Russian roulette with our fate, we had better start taking actions and grab the bull by the horns.
But as any concrete action requires high awareness, the troubling question is how aware the average Indonesians are of hypertension and of the fact that it is one of the top three silent killers in the world with cardiovascular disease and diabetes? Based on my observations, our public has yet to become fully alerted on the dangers of hypertension ' currently treated as an existing but obscure threat that is dismissed into the subconscious mind.
As a research director in an established company producing nutritional products and former professor in Nutrition at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, I frequently travel to different countries in Southeast Asia to observe local eating habits and lifestyles.
On several occasions that I visited Indonesia, I could see how unhealthy eating habits have taken on a viral-like pattern, spreading to both urban and rural areas. Fast food restaurant chains are growing at a frighteningly rapid speed in urban areas, while cheap food high in sugar and saturated fat detrimental to one's health are readily available in rural areas.
More and more urbanites, including children, have adopted a sedentary lifestyle that involves less and less physical activities. Certainly, heavy traffic jams, demanding office hours and highly sophisticated game gadgets are the culprits keeping us captive in a lethargic way of living. Combined with poor eating habits, then we have a bigger monster to feed (and fear): obesity ' a high risk factor for hypertension along with smoking.
Being part of the health sciences community, I am sure that hypertension can partly be prevented early, i.e. by reducing the risk of obesity. Unfortunately, people still don't take obesity seriously, just like hypertension if they would know. In many instances, I see how chubby children are adored and turned into poster children of good health. People dole out the same text-book answer to opposing responses to their overweight offspring: they are still experiencing growth spurts and, therefore, they can eat virtually anything. That might be true 50 years ago when there were enough physical activities to burn excessive calories intake in the day's work. But not today.
No wonder that Indonesia is weighed down by another potential extra burden on its already heavy shoulders: overweight children. Numerous studies show that children, starting from 5-6 years of age, who are obese, are likely to be overweight in their adulthood, exposing them even further to hypertension. It was found in 2010 that 14 percent of Indonesian children under the age of five were overweight, as was the fate of 9 percent of children between the ages of six and 12. Jakarta, the capital city of this great nation, saw the highest rate of overweight children among those younger than five years at nearly 20 percent.
While most people think that being overweight is the problem of the middle-upper class and urban citizens, I am afraid that this is no longer the only truth. Obesity is now also a clear and present danger even among low-income earners and those living in rural areas where poor quality foods containing unhealthy substances and ingredients ' deep fried foods, sugary or savory/salty foods, oily foods and many others ' are often the most affordable option that they have at their disposal.
I have come across many cases in which children who were born in poor families and survived the first two years living in hunger, will be exposed to a higher risk of obesity as their livelihood improves along with food supply ' compared to those who received balanced nutrition at an early age. That is why nowadays, obese housewives in slump areas are a common sight.
Tackling the challenge of obesity becomes a critical initiative also to tame the deadly threat of hypertension. I see that Indonesia has seen considerable progress in this respect. The government's participation in the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative, for instance, is an excellent start. This initiative highlights the importance of the first 1,000 days of life, where nutritional intake will affect the 'programming' of a child's body; helping determine their chances of whether or not they will have a higher risk of nutrition-related diseases, including obesity.
It is encouraging to hear that one of the targets of SUN initiative is that by 2025, we will no longer stand witness to a ballooning number of overweight children. The country is in need of an initiative that is consistently implemented, not only by the current government but also by its successors, as this will significantly reduce the number hypertension cases in the coming years.
Based on numerous international evaluations, experts and organizations increasingly agree that a solid Public Private Partnership (PPP) is our best strategy to effectively tackle problem of obesity. Enlightened firms can collaborate with relevant government agencies and non-governmental organizations to not only raise the people's awareness on obesity and heightened risk of hypertension, but to also provide relevance and trainings on a healthier lifestyle for community leaders.
Having said all these, I must underline the most crucial role yet: that of parents, by taking their children early life nutrition (ELN) seriously. As scientists found out that breastfeeding will reduce the risk of obesity by 20 percent, mothers should do their best to breastfeed their babies. So apart from replacing our eating habits and way of life with healthier ones, we should also pay attention to nutritional intake at an early age.
Indonesia, an archipelagic giant, is sitting on a ticking bomb fueled with hypertension, obesity and diabetes. An effort made to wage a war against hypertension by taking the ELN more seriously is a step closer to defusing that bomb. Otherwise, the loss would be tremendous if there are no concrete efforts to nip hypertension in the bud. Immediate action is literally, a matter of life and death; otherwise, a whole new generation is left vulnerable to the disease. You too, can help save lives. Not only your own, but also the lives of those who come long after you.
Let that be your legacy.
The writer is a former professor of nutrition at Wageningen University, the Netherlands and Singapore-based researcher and advisor.
