Doc urges ‘immediate intervention’ in hypertension crisis

The prevalence of Barbadians with hypertension has reached astronomical rates, a university lecturer and physician declared Tuesday.

And given the development, Dr Colin Alert, Associate Lecturer in Family Medicine at UWI Cave Hill has called for immediate intervention in order to curb the worrying trend.

His comments were made during Monday’s online forum hosted by The Diabetes and Hypertension Association of Barbados, in conjunction with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, entitled Wuhloss Barbados, We under Pressure!

During his presentation, Dr Alert delivered some startling statistics covering the rate of high blood pressure among adults on the island, stating that though the numbers associated with these NCDs (non-communicable diseases) and other ailments were bad in the past, the current levels have almost doubled in some areas.

Dr Alert said: “The recent national study we have, a study called the Health of the Nation Study from the year 2015, found that adults 25 years and older, the prevalence of hypertension was 42 per cent, so four out of ten adults over the age of 25 had high blood pressure. Now is that bad? Let us backtrack a little.

“There was a study done in 1995 in that same age group, and in that study called International Collaborative Study on Hypertension in Blacks (ICSHIB), the prevalence of hypertension in Barbados was 21 per cent. So in 1995, it was 21 per cent, 20 years later in 2015, it was 42 per cent.

“The prevalence of hypertension doubled in that 20-year spell in Barbados, so by all accounts things are getting worse.”

One other area of NCD prevalence that is not paid enough attention to, according to Dr Alert, is the rate of strokes and heart attacks being experienced by Barbadians per day.

He added: “In Barbados, we have a heart attack per day, which is 30 a month. Of that 30, 20 die. We have three strokes every two days, which is 45 a month, 20 of those die. So every month we have 40 people dying from heart attacks and strokes, [compared] to the 15 months we have had COVID, where 46 people died. So every month, hypertension-related diseases cause a major amount of death.”

Pharmacist Robert Carter, a lecturer in Pharmacy at the Barbados Community College, also joined in the discussion. He noted that though more Barbadians were seeking to take medication in order to control their high blood pressure levels, an unfortunate development, dubbed polypharmacy, has started to occur, where patients are mixing several supplements together with their prescribed medication, in order to theoretically gain better results faster.

Carter advised against the dangerous practice, saying: “A lot of the time, some persons do not know that these drugs interact with each other, and drugs interact with herbs. As much as you would say herbs don’t have side effects, which in a lot of the cases is true, what you get is an interaction between the herb [or] supplement and the drug, which can potentiate the effect of the drug.

“So instead of getting your blood pressure reduced to about 120 over 80, you might get blood pressure reduced a lot further, and that was never discussed with the doctor.”

Carter was also adamant that policy changes all across the board, in terms of the food Barbadians consume daily, as well as the detailed packaging being proposed for food items on the island which would show important information for those suffering from heart disease and other ailments, will be the only way for Barbados to correct the trend of high cases of NCD’s amongst its locals.

“These rules and these policies need to be put in place in Barbados, to make a dent in non-communicable diseases here, hypertension, diabetes, and the others,” said Carter. (SB)