World Hypertension Day: All you need to know about this silent killer and what does study say about its occurrence

Hypertension is also known as the silent killer as it has no signs or symptoms. It occurs when the blood pressure in the arteries increases abnormally. While there are many reasons behind this abnormal increase in the blood, the most important being stress.

But do we know that the doctors whom we consult for even our smallest health problems are actually most stressful in the world due to their job. May 17 is observed as World Hypertension Day and on this day we will tell you some facts of hypertension.

According to a study, more than 50 per cent doctors suffer from uncontrolled hypertension or high blood pressure (BP), despite of the fact that they take hypertensive medicines.

Hypertension has become so common due to the lifestyle of the people nowadays, that one in three Indian adults suffer from it and is equally high among medical team.

Often there are chances of it being misdiagnosed as there are differences in blood pressure readings at home and in a clinical setting.

According to the findings, 56 percent of physicians suffered from irregular BP at night while 21 per cent suffered from masked hypertension, which is a condition in which the reading for patient’s blood pressure is inaccurate to specific environments.

According to the study, masked hypertension is also related to increased long-term risk of sustained hypertension and cardiovascular morbidity.

"Over 50 per cent physicians had uncontrolled hypertension despite taking hypertensive medicines. While 21 percent of the doctors surveyed had masked hypertension or isolated ambulatory hypertension, another 56 percent doctors suffered from irregular BP pattern at night making them prone to future adverse cardiac events," said Indian Medical Association (IMA) Presidet K.K. Aggarwal.

For the study, almost 20,000 readings of 533 doctors were taken.