Four out of five people with high blood pressure are not adequately treated, and nearly half of all people with this common and deadly condition don’t know they have it, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. High blood pressure, also called hypertension, can lead to heart attack, stroke, kidney failure and other health problems — and it’s running rampant despite the availability of simple, low-cost drugs to treat the condition, the WHO said. About 76 million deaths could be avoided between now and 2050 if countries stepped up efforts to treat high blood pressure, the global health body said.
Previous research has found that high blood pressure is the single most important factor triggering early deaths worldwide, causing about 10.8 million avoidable deaths annually. “The bottom line here is that the world’s most deadly condition is also the most neglected,” Dr. Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit focused on cardiovascular health, and former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control a …
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