Awareness Among Those Suffering from Hypertension Increases
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed relatively good news in terms of high blood pressure awareness. According to a feature on WebMD, the CDC report shared that more people who are suffering from high blood pressure know that they have the condition.
The percentage of Americans who are aware that they are suffering from high blood pressure has increased to 80.6% in 2007-2008, from 69.6% in 1999-2000. This increase is accompanied by an increase in the percentage of people who are taking medications for the conditions, which went up to 73.7% in 2007-2008, from 60.2% in 1999-2000.
Researchers have attributed findings that indicated an increase in the percentage of people whose high blood pressure was controlled in the past decade to this apparent increase in awareness.
Nieca Goldberg, M.D., director of the Women’s Heart Program and clinical associate professor at NYU Langone Medical Center, shared the following of the report from the CDC: “We are now seeing more people being treated with medication, particularly younger people. There has to be a greater effort to impress healthy lifestyles on young people because long standing hypertension can lead to heart attack, stroke and heart failure.”
The report signifies that efforts towards increasing public awareness in hypertension seem to be working. Despite the increase in awareness, however, the incidence of hypertension among adults has held steady over the past decade. This is true for men and women, all adult age groups, non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and Mexican-Americans.
