Civilisation And High Blood Pressure

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 19

Civilisation And High Blood Pressure

The proportion of persons over 40 with high blood pressure is much higher among Maoris than among their fellow-Polynesians of the Tokelaus. to the northern Cook Islands, and much higher among Maoris living as part of, or to close contact with, Western civilisation than among isolated groups, according to figures presented to a medical conference to Christchurch by Dr. I. A. M. Prior, of the Medical Unit, Wellington Hospital- . . . The conference was a joint plenary session of the annual meetings of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, which took the form of a symposium on high blood pressure. There was a correlation between high blood pressure and excess weight among Maoris, but obesity was “clearly not the whole story'’ as many slim Maoris,

too, suffered from hypertension, Dr. Prior said. The proportion of Maori women with high blood pressure was higher than thait among the men. The areas for which Dr. Prior gave figures included the Tokelaus (northern Cook Islands), Ruataihuna (isolated Maori), Tikitaki (rural Maori), and Rotorua (city Miaori). The figures for Tikitiki and Rotorua were rather similar. The percentage of xnen aged 40 and over with hypertension was 3.3 to the Tokelaus, 11.4 ait Ruatahuna, and 27 in Rotorua. The corresponding figures for women were: Tokelaus 7.5, Ruatahuna 25, and Rotorua 39. Other investigators had reported high blood pressure as rare or absent from Micronesians in the Gilbert Islands and Polynesians to Puka Puka in the northern Cooks, Dr. Prior said. His group planned to do further work in the Cook Islands later this year. The Polynesians, who varied little racially and yet whose way of life ranged from that of modern Western civilisation to a very uncomplicated type of existence, presented an almost unrivalled opportunity of, investigating the correlation of disease and civilisation, Dr. Prior added.