Journal of Geriatric Cardiology : JGC | 2019
Importance must be attached to correcting unhealthy lifestyles in prevention and control of hypertension
Abstract
On the macro level, the ‘2018 Chinese Guidelines for Prevention and Treatment of Hypertension’ provides a detailed overview on the population strategies for hypertension prevention as well as the principles and methods of community standardized management for hypertension control, with particular emphasis on the significance of correcting unhealthy lifestyles for the prevention and control of hypertension and its complications. \uf020 Over the past 100 years, research on the pathogenesis of hypertension has revealed that the occurrence of human hypertension is the result of interaction between internal factors (physiological functions and gene regulation) and external factors (various risk factors contributing to elevated blood pressure). The results of natural history study on hypertension have indicated that hypertension is not an inevitable consequence of aging. For example, some blood pressure studies of primitive tribal populations isolated from modern society (characterized by peaceful life, vegetarian-based diet, without tobacco smoking/alcohol drinking habits and with plenty of physical activity) did not find a positive relationship between blood pressure and age. These studies also found that with the lifestyle transition from primitivity to modernization, urbanization and automation, hypertension had become a lingering shadow of human society. The result is that elevated blood pressure eventually leads to lesions in the heart, brain and kidney which impair patients’ health and longevity. The reason behind this is that the economic progress and improvement of human lives often accompany with unhealthy lifestyles, including unhealthy diet, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption, work and mental stress and lack of physical activity. Many prospective epidemiological studies have also demonstrated that the adoption of a healthy lifestyle from childhood or adolescence can effectively halt or delay the