The cities pedestrian, an antidote to high blood pressure

QMI agency

Sunday, February 11, 2018 12:04

UPDATE
Sunday, February 11, 2018 12:06

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Bring the cities to a human scale by building neighborhoods focused on walking could help to reduce the problems of high blood pressure in the world, shows a british study published at the beginning of the month.

According to researchers from the universities of Hong Kong and Oxford, who analysed data from nearly 430,000 citizens of the United Kingdom aged from 38 to 73 years and from 22 cities, to live in a neighborhood where services are within walking distance would help to prevent problems with high blood pressure and decreases the blood pressure.

The correlation between the decrease of high blood pressure and the possibility of walking in his neighborhood is particularly visible among women, people between the ages of 50 and 60, and the citizens living in neighborhoods are very dense and green neighbourhoods.

Savings

High blood pressure is a common problem in the world, with approximately 1 billion people are infected. In Canada, approximately 7.5 million citizens are of the “high-pressure”, or approximately one person in five. According to Hypertension Canada, the “high pressure” may play a role in approximately 18% of all deaths per year in the world.

“We spend billions of pounds to prevent and cure cardiovascular disease. If we could invest in the creation of a cities health by rearranging the organization of our neighbourhoods to make them more supportive of physical activity and walking, so, probably, we could achieve significant savings in health care in the future,” said dr. Chinmoy Sarkar at the Guardian newspaper.

Cities poorly adapted to walking promote lifestyles more sedentary, which increases the risk of developing high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems, said Mr. Sarkar.

There were, in 2010, approximately 8 million prescriptions for antihypertensive agents in Canada. These drugs accounted for a cost of about $ 3 billion, according to Hypertension Canada.

The study has been published in the specialized publication “International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Heath” on the 3rd of February.