Poverty, marital issues cause high blood pressure - UG Senior lecturer

The Senior Lecturer at the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Ghana, Legon, Dr. Cecilia Eliason, has said people with low socio-economic backgrounds are mostly diagnosed with high blood pressure.

Speaking on the GTV Breakfast Show, the Senior Lecturer stated that, studies have found that poor people mostly have high blood pressure.

“… financial issues and all that. Studies also have found out that, those of us from low socio-economic background have high incidents of high blood pressure”, she stated.

According to her, age and marital issues can also cause high blood pressure.

"Your age as you age your BP increases and then your environment. There can be issues like marital issues”, she added.

She however mentioned that people diagnosed with high blood pressure cannot be completely cured through medications unless they change their lifestyle.

“Ooh, if you are diagnosed hypertensive and you make sure you take your drugs, you go by changing your lifestyle, you are able to maintain your body weight with time, and your BP keeps maintaining at the low blood pressure, it is just that they maybe reduce the dosage of your drugs but to take you off no…. because if you take them off, you don't know, there are risk factors”, she advised.