We all know the harmful effects of an unhealthy lifestyle -smoking, unhealthy food, lack of exercise and sleep deprivation. Hypertension, among the variety of risks our unhealthy lifestyle has been causing the mortality in humans. A study published in The Lancet showed that between the years 1990 to 2013 and alarming of 50% to as much as 79% was added to the number of deaths due to high blood pressure has been observed.
The study led by Dr. Mohammad Hossein Forouzanfar of the University of Washington in Seattle analyzed the data through the said years from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries and Risk Factor (GBD) study. The study is named "Global, regional and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational and metabolic risks or clusters of risks in 188 countries 1990-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study 2013."
The risks are not only showing the contributing factors from the lifestyle, but also with the age and sex. Hypertension, high body mass index, high blood pressure and also diabetes are the top global killers. Some of these diseases can be more of risk to men than women such as high blood pressure and hypertension while the high body mass index (BMI) were more susceptible to women.
The 23 year study observed that smoking poses the top contributing factor, as it is more prominent in the more modern, fast paced, high income cities for early fatalities while in India and South East Asia would be air pollution, obesity in the Middle East and Latin America, while malnutrition and sexually related diseases are more prominent in Africa.
"There's great potential to improve health by avoiding certain risks like smoking and poor diet as well as tackling environmental risks like air pollution," Dr. Christopher Murray of IHME said. They based it on the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) or loss of healthy years. A 21 percent of the fatal casualties resulted from poor diet, environmental factors and smoking.
