Hypertension Checks Urged

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31232, 2 December 1966, Page 1

Hypertension Checks Urged

tN.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, December 1. Everyone should have a blood pressure check at 45. Those with a family history of high blood pressure should have a check evert- three to four years, according to Professor S. W. Hoobler, of the United States.

In Dunedin today Professor Hoobler said he shared the belief of Sir Horace Smirk, director of the Wellcome Research Institute, that high blood pressure was an in-

herited situation. “It is not a disease you can cure. You can only suppress it. “But if you can treat it early it is easy to control. If you can lower the pressure in the early stages you can hold it down with less forceful amounts of drugs.” People who were going to have high blood pressure would get some trace of the disease by 45, said Professor Hoobler, who is professor of internal medicine and director of the hypertension unit of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “I am trying to publicise this in the United States. —I would like to see everyone—but especially those with a family history of hypertension —have a check at 45, even if

they had no problem at 30.” The majority of people had checks up to about 30—men for insurance purposes, women because they were having a baby. There was a “silent” period when treatment could be given if only the development of the disease were known. Not Occupation Professor Hoobler believes there may be some environmental influences affecting the incidence of hypertension, dubbed the “disease of civilisation,” But it is not linked with occupation. High blood pressure is as common among factory workers as business executives, he said. Research in hypertension was working towards three objectives. Professor Hoobler

said. One was the question of preventive medicine. “This is my- fetish. If we could control blood pressure from the start we could make great inroads into the stroke rate. I would like to sell the idea that in a lot of cases strokes could be avoided.” By Surgery

A second objective was the possibility of curing hypertension in some instances by surgery. The third was the work Sir Horace Smirk was doing on the relation between high blood pressure and heart attacks, for which he is using apparatus which detects the changes in heart rhythms of the hypertension patient. People with high blood pressure were three times more susceptible to heart attack, Professor Hoobler said.