Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, June 7: Over 20 per cent of Indian youth suffer from hypertension and associated health problems due to their sedentary lifestyle, experts have said.
The experts warned that hypertension and other complications were also leading to brain haemorrhage. “Most of the young, working population face health problems due to anxiety, stress and the usual ‘hurry’ that prevails in their day-to-day life,” said A Muruganathan, president of Hypertension Society of India.
“Erratic lifestyle, attitude, behaviour, wrong food habits, smoking, alcohol consumption and pollution lead to lifestyle diseases such as hypertension,” he added.
According to Muruganathan, abdominal obesity was another major cause of hypertension. “Males with waist circumference of more than 90 cm and females with waist circumference of more than 80 cm have more chances of developing hypertension,” he said.
Hypertension is a major cause of cardiovascular problems in India, which lead to 1.1 million deaths (uncertainty index 0.9-1.3 million) annually. It accounts for 10.8 per cent of all deaths and 4.6 per cent of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) in the country.
Working youth hardly get time to exercise and have proper diet, which leads to hypertension. Diabetes is a common disease among the youth in their 20s and 30s. A sedentary lifestyle only exacerbates the situation, said SS Das, head of critical care and cardiology at the Kolkata-based Mercy Hospital. Asked if other countries are also witnessing these problems, Das said the scenario was the same globally.
