What are the risks of HBP?

High blood pressure has been the number one killer in the world for more than 10 years
So much so that May 17th has been declared World Hypertension Day to raise awareness for
this heinous disease
Hypertension is called the “silent disease” for its insidious onset on the body. You don’t
even know you have it until yu start having chest pains, heart problems, kidney problems –
even having a stroke.
Trinidad and Tobago ranks 14th in the world as the most deaths due to high blood pressure.
Because of our diets and sedentary lifestyles, we are predominantly at risk.

What is HBP?
A chronic condition in which the bloodflow pressure in your vessels are abnormally
elevated.

When your heart pumps, it remains at a certain pressure. Not too low, to make sure blood
gets everywhere that it needs to in the body, but also not too high, otherwise you can cause
damage or even burst vessels. This is expressed as 120/80. 120 means systolic blood
pressure, when your heart beats, and 80, meaning when your blood relaxes.

one third of men and one quarter of women aged 40 have it.

This balance is integral to the body, so much so that when your blood pressure is too high,
you can have detrimental effects on the body. The high blood flow ends up damaging your
kidney’s ability to filter out the salts and substances in your blood, causing renal failure.

You start getting chest pains, because your heart muscle isn’t being supplied enough. Your
heart muscle begins growing too big to be supplied adequately; sometimes, too thick to be
properly innvervated, so it can’t pump blood as well  this is called cardiac hypertrophy.
47% of heart attacks and 54% of strokes are caused by high blood pressure, due to
inadequacy of supply to these vital organs.

How does one get HBP?

- Stressful lifestyles can cause the hormone response to stress to be activated. This
hormone, called cortisol, can cause permanently elevated HBP is it has been
chronically raised in the system.
- Poor diet – diets high in fat, sugar, cholesterol and salt can cause a rise in blood
pressure
- Tobacco use – Nicotine can cause narrowing of your arteries
- Overweight or obesity
- Men have a higher predisposition than women because of effects of estrogen on the
body

What is Trinidad doing to prevent it?

- Improved health care ans self management by promoting follow up appoinments,
giving feedback, fixing issues elated to supply, distribution and cost with respect to
medication
 - Chart review audits by random sampling
- Standardised protocol as guides for tratement of hypertension
- Raising public awareness
- Discouraging smoking, poor diet habits in schoolchildren and adults alike, and
encouraging low salt, fibrous, low fat diets

What can I do to prevent it?

- Improving diet – Reducing salt and high fat intake, ingesting more sources of Omega
3 and vegetable oils, such as vegetables, flax seeds, salmon and fish
- No alcohol – a glass of wine a week has been beneficial in case studies
- No smoking
- Aerobic exercise at least 30 minutes daily, as often as you can
- Know your current BP; do home monitoring using a sphygmomanometer  cost
effective, early detection, promotes lifestyle changes