Study: 1 in 3 people with hypertension don't monitor their condition and 1 in 5 don't follow any treatment

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Jul 7 2019

Study conducted as part of blood pressure-measuring campaign MMM18 shows that that one in three people with hypertension don't monitor it (35.5%), and one in five don't follow any sort of treatment (19%).

Internal Medicine professor at the CEU Cardenal Herrera University, Enrique Rodilla Sala, has given an oral presentation at the 29^th European Meeting on Hypertension and Cardiovascular Protection, held in Milan. In it, he revealed the results in Spain of international blood pressure-measuring campaign May Measurement Month 2018 (MMM18), backed by the Spanish Hypertension Society (SEH-LELHA) and where the CEU UCH was the only partaking Spanish university. Among the results obtained from the 7,511 cases studied, it is worth noting that one in three people with hypertension don't monitor it (35.5%), and one in five don't follow any sort of treatment (19%). Alcohol and tobacco consumption and diabetes were detected as the most frequent risk factors.

As professor Enrique Rodilla explains:

These results show the usefulness of campaigns such as the May Measurement Month, supported on an international level by the International Society of Hypertension (ISH). From Spain, for the edition of the current year 2019 of the MMM, once again under the coordination of the SEH-LELHA, we are trying to expand the assessed population, with cases from more universities and community chemists of the SEFAC (Spanish Family and Community Chemistry Society), but also of mutual labour insurance companies, entities of Primary Attention and other medical specialities, and among groups of patients."

Hypertense youth

Professor Rodilla also revealed in Milan the results of the 1,009 cases registered in MMM18 by the 99 Medicine students of the CEU UCH in Valencia and Castellón who took part in the campaign. Of these 1,009 cases, 58.5% were under the age of 30 of the university environment, with an average 21 years of age. In this group of young population, 12.5% of participants were found to be hypertense, with the most frequent risk factors among youth being male gender, obesity and excess weight.

"In total, In the MMM19 campaign, we sent 129 cases of young hypertense adults for their assessment in the Primary Attention Centres, which is why we believe these campaigns to monitor hypertension are also important for the younger population, which is typically not added to this type of studies. In this sense, the participation of universities such as the CEU UCH plays a key role, which is why we are maintaining our collaboration this year," highlights professor Rodilla.

"Vascular age" and injuries to target organs´

Two more studies from the CEU Cardenal Herrera University were presented at the 29^th European Meeting on Hypertension and Cardiovascular Protection. One of them is the result of the collaboration between the CEU UCH and the SEFAC in the RIVALFAR project to calculate the "vascular age" of the Valencian population, and has constituted the doctoral thesis of SEFAC chemist Vicente Colomer, under the guidance of CEU UCH professors Lucrecia Moreno and Enrique Rodilla. It analyzed the differences in the increase in central aortic pressure among people with normal blood pressure and hypertense people.

The fourth work presented at the scientific gathering was the work of Medicine student Eloy Sempere Moreno, who analysed in his Bachelor Dissertation the association between the carotid intima-media thickness, as an injury to a target organ, and other arterial hypertension markers in pre-hypertense patients that have not been treated, in order to establish its diagnostic utility, raising the need for future longitudinal studies to determine the prognostic value of the intima-media thickness.