Blood Pressure is NOT an old person’s problem: Why you should be checking your blood pressure if you are Under 35

Reports from the Office of National Statistics have shown that the age group 16-35 has the highest percentage of adults with undiagnosed hypertension, proportionally to the number of cases.

The common belief that high blood pressure is only a problem when you age is quickly eradicated by these statistics which show that 66% of males and 26% of females aged 16 to 24 years and 55% of males and 44% of females aged 25 to 34 years who had hypertension were undiagnosed.

Moreover, these reports show that an individual does not have to present risk factors to have high blood pressure. Adults with hypertension were more likely to be undiagnosed if their self-reported general health was “very good or good” , not obese or overweight and never smoke. Demonstrating that you can “seem” young and healthy, but still have high blood pressure.

But why does that matter? We know that high blood pressure is the leading cause of lifestyle related brain haemorrhages and therefore any undiagnosed cases run the significant risk of a tragedy waiting to happen. And that might not even be a brain haemorrhage, but other conditions that can come as a result of hypertension, such as Stroke and heart attacks.

Whilst there are certain risk factors that contribute to high blood pressure, such as smoking, drinking, carrying too much weight, high salt in take, as well as age, an individual can still have high blood pressure in the absence of all of these.

“This information shows that…. HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE does not discriminate. ”

When over 10 million people, of all ages, die ever year as a result of hypertension, something which can be managed, these numbers are not acceptable and should, and can, be prevented.

But where do we start?

This is our mission.

We firmly believe that if we can educate and empower individuals aged 16-35 to better monitor and manage their blood pressure, not only will we help those people who are undiagnosed in this age group, but we can create a systemic, generation change that will not only benefit the next generation, but also support our NHS which currently spends £2billion a year on hypertension.

We therefore need to do 2 things to change this:

1. EDUCATE : We need to change the understanding and awareness that we should all be monitoring our blood pressure more often (not just the odd time you go to the GP). We want to empower more individuals to take their health back into their own hands by both monitoring their blood pressure but also understanding how to shift their lifestyle to manage their blood pressure. (for more information on this check out our PREVENTION page)

2. IMPROVE ACCESS:  We cannot rely on just going to the GP to get our blood pressure checked, so we need more access points of which there are already MANY - so head to aTesco pharmacy, your local pharmacy or best yet buy one for home to make it as simple as possible for you.

This change is simple, but is potentially lifesaving!!

“MONITOR + MANAGE = PREVENT THE PREVENTABLE”

Let’s prevent more tragedies from happening!