Around a month ago, World Hypertension Day was observed. The notable piece of statistic was that four out of 10 adults worldwide have high blood pressure and only around 50 per cent of them are aware of it. Some two decades ago, the number of adults estimated to be living with high blood pressure was around 972 million. In the next five years, the number is expected to grow to around 1.56 billion. Mindboggling by any standards as a good 20 per cent of the population around the globe will likely be suffering from hypertension. What is the basis of coming to this conclusion is certainly a subject matter of another research. Particularly because if we calculate the total number of people suffering from hypertension and other global epidemics like diabetes, cancer, AIDS, depression etc, it may work out to be nearly the size of the entire population of the world. Whether the whole world is sick or not is a widely debatable issue, but given the business interest of the strong pharma lobby, there is certainly some room for scepticism. More so when huge investments in corporate hospitals are coming up and health/medical insurance companies are looking for a new and huge market. Then there is another question that needs to be answered: Whether these pieces of statistic are meant for creating awareness or creating a market. If one has the patience to sit in the out patients department of any senior physician of a decent sized hospital and observe closely the kind of complaints the patients come with, hypochondriasis rather than any serious malady would seem to be the major disease. In fact, many doctors are now actually confirming this. However, this is not to discount the threat that lurks all over the world on account of changing lifestyles, which most diseases of the present times arise from. But we must take these warnings with a pinch of salt. Are they actually warnings or agonising statistics to awfulize the whole scenario by creating some kind of a fear psychosis that benefits the pharma lobby more than the potential patients? There is need to assess the whole situation scientifically and with an open mind and question such assertions. A case in point is the recent guidelines on identification of diabetic patients and potential diabetics. While the measures of diabetes are also changing and benchmarks are being lowered, what is more interesting is the creation of new categories. So there is a range of measurements that tends to classify categories of diabetic patients, starting from a stage called pre-diabetic. Often the predisposing factors are being highlighted as causative factors and this prompts many people to start taking preventive medication, which may not be needed at all. Further, many people may actually develop some diseases out of fear. The big question that thus needs to be addressed is whether the hypertension epidemic, that the world is likely to witness in the next five years, is due to medical conditions or mental conditions created by the onslaught of fear evoked through information that can make even a healthy individual anxious of his health condition. Tension, of course, is rising in the world but it is more due to anxiety that is being systematically ingrained in human minds. Health is everybody’s concern, but that should not make everybody sick.

Pathak is a professor of management, writer, and an acclaimed public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com