Hypertension is highly prevalent worldwide and is the major risk factor for heart failure (HF). More than half of the patients with HF in Asia suffer from hypertension. According to the 2022 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology/Heart Failure Society of America HF guideline, there are four stages of HF, including at risk for HF (stage A), pre-HF (stage B), symptomatic HF (stage C), and advanced HF (stage D). Given the high prevalence of hypertension as well as HF and the stronger association between hypertension and cardiovascular diseases in Asians compared to the west, measures to prevent and alleviate the progression to clinical HF, especially controlling the blood pressure (BP), are of priority for Asian populations. After reviewing evidence-based studies, we propose a BP target of less than 130/80 mmHg for patients at stages A, B, and C. However, relatively higher BP may represent an opportunity to maximize guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT), which could potentially result in a better prognosis for patients at stage D. Traditional antihypertensive drugs are the cornerstones for the management of hypertension at stages A and B. Notably, calcium channel blockers (CCBs) are inferior to other drug classes for the preventing of HF, whereas diuretics are superior to others. For patients at stage C, GDMT is essential which also helps the control of BP. In particular, sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are newer therapies recommended for the treatment of HF and presumably even in hypertension to prevent HF. Regarding patients at stage D, GDMT is also recommended if tolerable and measures should be taken to improve hemodynamics.
The prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) is above 40% in both Asian and non-Asian male populations after the age of 40 years. The prevalence of ED among hypertensive patients is approximately double than that in normotensive population. Pelvic arterial insufficiency is the predominant cause of ED in men aged over 50 years. Stenosis in any segment of the iliac-pudendal-penile arterial system, which is considered an erectile-related arterial axis, could lead to ED. Pharmacotherapy with lifestyle modification is effective in alleviating sexual dysfunction, yet a substantial number of patients still develop ED. Given the established applicability of angioplasty for the entire iliac-pudendal-penile arterial system, penile duplex ultrasound, and pelvic computed tomography angiography could be considered as the routine screening tools in ED patients with poor response to phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors. Endovascular therapy for pelvic arterial insufficiency-related ED has been shown to be a safe and effective treatment option in patients who have anatomically suitable vessels and functionally significant stenoses. Clinical improvement was achieved in over 60% of patients at one year following pelvic angioplasty in the PERFECT registry from Taiwan. A 30%-40% restenosis rate in distal internal pudendal and penile arteries remains a hurdle. Angioplasty for pelvic arterial occlusive disease could be considered as a viable approach to arteriogenic ED.
Hypertension is an insidious disease which predisposes to cardiovascular complications and if not treated properly can lead to various serious complications. Economic limitations, having additional benefits with few or almost no side effects have made non-pharmacological management of hypertension an attractive approach for dealing with hypertension, in developed and developing countries alike. A MEDLINE search was done for relevant references with emphasis on original studies, randomized controlled trials, and meta-analyses for this review paper. Lifestyle modifications including changes in the dietary pattern, adopting special diets with low sodium, saturated fat and high calcium, magnesium and potassium and trying the new methods like time restricted meal intake which work in tandem with the circadian rhythm are opening new vistas in the field of non-pharmacological management of hypertension. Lifestyle modifications that effectively lower blood pressure are increased physical activity, weight loss, limited alcohol consumption, relaxation techniques of Yoga, Acupuncture, Tai chi, mindfulness-based stress-reduction program, and Transcendental Meditation. Air pollution of the surrounding air is linked with poor health outcomes and is a major contributor to the global burden of disease. Fine particulate matter <2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5) is strongly associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Short-term PM exposure (hours to weeks) increases the likelihood of adverse cardiovascular events including myocardial infarction, stroke, and heart failure, and longer-term exposure multiplies that risk. Non-pharmacological methods should be initiated early phase of disease and should be continued with medication.
There is emerging evidence that α1-blockers can be safely used in the treatment of hypertension. These drugs can be used in almost all hypertensive patients for blood pressure control. However, there are several special indications. Benign prostatic hyperplasia is a compelling indication of α1-blockers, because of the dual treatment effect on both high blood pressure and lower urinary tract symptoms. Many patients with resistant hypertension would require α1-blockers as add-on therapy. Primary aldosteronism screen is a rapidly increasing clinical demand in the management of hypertension, where α1-blockers are useful for blood pressure control in the preparation for the measurement of plasma aldosterone and renin. Nonetheless, α1-blockers have to be used under several considerations. Among the currently available agents, only long-acting α1-blockers, such as doxazosin gastrointestinal therapeutic system 4-8 mg daily and terazosin 2-4 mg daily, should be chosen. Orthostatic hypotension is a concern with the use of α1-blockers especially in the elderly, and requires careful initial bedtime dosing and avoiding overdosing. Fluid retention is potentially also a concern, which may be overcome by combining an α1-blocker with a diuretic.
The prevalence of hypertension varies by country and region, but it remains a leading yet modifiable risk factor of cardiovascular disease. There are many factors that contribute to the burden of hypertension in Asia, a region with diverse ethnicity. It has been shown that sociodemographic variability is related to ethnic differences, thereby emphasizing the importance of hypertension screening and educating at-risk or vulnerable groups. In this review, we describe the ethnic differences in genetic variants, dietary choice, and lifestyle habits, as well as its association with sociodemographic differences, hypertension awareness, and treatment control.
Insulin resistance (IR), a metabolic risk factor, is linked to the pathogenetic mechanism of primary hypertension. Detecting IR in the patients with hypertension will help to predict and stratify the added cardiovascular risk, institute appropriate IR management, and manage hypertension optimally. There are many methods for assessing IR, each with distinct advantages and disadvantages. The euglycemic insulin clamp and intravenous glucose tolerance test, gold standards for measuring IR, are used in research but not in clinical practice. Homeostatic model assessment (HOMA-IR), a method for assessing β-cell function and IR, is frequently applied presently, particularly in Asia. Besides, the triglyceride-glucose index (TyG) first published by South American authors showed a good correlation with the insulin clamp technique and HOMA-IR index. This simple, convenient, and low-cost TyG index is of research interest in many countries in Asia and can be used to screen for IR in the Asian hypertensive community.
Home blood pressure (HBP) has been recognized as a prognostic predictor for cardiovascular events, and integrated into the diagnosis and management of hypertension. With increasing accessibility of oscillometric blood pressure devices, HBP monitoring is easy to perform, more likely to obtain reliable estimation of blood pressures, and feasible to document long-term blood pressure variations, compared to office and ambulatory blood pressures. To obtain reliable HBP estimates, a standardized HBP monitoring protocol is essential. A consensus regarding the optimal duration and frequency of HBP monitoring is yet to be established. Based on the current evidence, the "722" protocol, which stands for two measurements on one occasion, two occasions a day (morning and evening), and over a consecutive of 7 days, is most commonly used in clinical studies and recommended in relevant guidelines and consensus documents. HBP monitoring based on the "722" protocol fulfills the minimal requirement of blood pressure measurements to achieve agreement of blood pressure classifications defined by office blood pressures and to predict cardiovascular risks. In the Taiwan HBP consensus, the frequency of repeating the "722" protocol of HBP monitoring according to different scenarios of hypertension management, from every 2 weeks to 3 months, is recommended. It is reasonable to conclude that the "722" protocol for HBP monitoring is clinically justified and can serve as a basis for standardized HBP monitoring.
Hypertension is the leading cause of mortality throughout Asia. Home blood pressure monitoring has the potential to improve hypertension control and is a useful adjunct to conventional office blood pressure measurements due to its diagnostic accuracy and prognostic value in predicting cardiovascular outcomes. At present, there are no region-specific guidelines addressing the use of home blood pressure monitoring in Asia. Therefore, an expert panel was convened to address the use of home blood pressure monitoring and develop key recommendations to help guide clinical practice throughout the Asia region. The resulting recommendations support the use of home blood pressure monitoring with a validated device as an accurate adjunct for diagnosing hypertension and predicting cardiovascular outcome. Diagnosis and treatment of hypertension should still be guided by conventional office/clinic blood pressure measurements. The expert panel encourages the incorporation of home blood pressure monitoring into local clinical guidelines and offers practical recommendations to ensure continuity of care where a validated home blood pressure device is not available.
Hypertension is an important public health issue because of its association with a number of significant diseases and adverse outcomes. However, there are important ethnic differences in the pathogenesis and cardio-/cerebrovascular consequences of hypertension. Given the large populations and rapidly aging demographic in Asian regions, optimal strategies to diagnose and manage hypertension are of high importance. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is an important out-of-office blood pressure (BP) measurement tool that should play a central role in hypertension detection and management. The use of ABPM is particularly important in Asia due to the specific features of hypertension in Asian patients, including a high prevalence of masked hypertension, disrupted BP variability with marked morning BP surge, and nocturnal hypertension. This HOPE Asia Network document summarizes region-specific literature on the relationship between ABPM parameters and cardiovascular risk and target organ damage, providing a rationale for consensus-based recommendations on the use of ABPM in Asia. The aim of these recommendations is to guide and improve clinical practice to facilitate optimal BP monitoring with the goal of optimizing patient management and expediting the efficient allocation of treatment and health care resources. This should contribute to the HOPE Asia Network mission of improving the management of hypertension and organ protection toward achieving "zero" cardiovascular events in Asia.
Approximately 365 million people in Asia were classified as elderly in 2017. This number is rising and expected to reach approximately 520 million by 2030. The risk of hypertension and cognitive impairment/dementia increases with age. Recent data also show that the prevalence of hypertension and age-related dementia are rising in Asian countries. Moreover, not many people in Asian countries are aware of the relationship between hypertension and cognitive impairment/dementia. Furthermore, hypertension control is poorer in Asia than in developed countries. Hypertension is known to be a major risk factor for damage to target organs, including the brain. Decreased cognitive function can indicate the presence of target organ damage in the brain. Twenty-four-hour blood pressure profiles and blood pressure variability have been associated with cognitive impairment and/or silent cerebral diseases, such as silent cerebral infarction or white matter lesions, which are predisposing conditions for cognitive impairment and dementia. Hypertension that occurs in midlife also affects the incidence of cognitive impairments in later life. Managing and controlling blood pressure could preserve cognitive functions, such as by reducing the risk of vascular dementia and by reducing the global burden of stroke, which also affects cognitive function.
Adherence continues to be the major hurdle in hypertension management. Since the early 2000s, systematic approaches have been emphasized to tackle multi-dimensional issues specific for each regional setting. However, there is little data regarding implementation of adherence interventions in Asian countries. Eleven hypertension experts from eight Asian countries answered questionnaires regarding the use of adherence interventions according to 11 theoretical domain frameworks by Allemann et al. A four-point Likert scale: Often, Sometimes, Seldom, and Never used was administered. Responses to 97 items from 11 domains excluding three irrelevant items were collected. "Often-used" interventions accounted for 5/9 for education, 1/8 for skills, 1/2 for social/professional role and identity, 1/1 for belief about capabilities, 0/3 for belief about consequences, 2/4 for intentions, 2/9 for memory, attention, and decision process, 11/20 for environmental context and resources, 0/2 for social influences, 0/2 for emotion, and 2/2 for behavioral regulation. Most of them are dependent on conventional resources. Most of "Never used" intervention were the adherence interventions related to multidisciplinary subspecialties or formal training for behavioral therapy. For adherence interventions recommended by 2018 ESC/ESH hypertension guidelines, only 1 in 7 patient level interventions was "Often used." In conclusion, conventional or physician level interventions such as education, counseling, and prescription have been well implemented but multidisciplinary interventions and patient or health system level interventions are in need of better implementation in Asian countries.
Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the leading cause of deaths worldwide, contributing to about 30% of all deaths. Half of the cases of CVD are estimated in Asia, the world's most populous continent. Hypertension, a major modifiable risk factor for CVD, results in more deaths than any other CV risk factors in the Asian regions. The total number of patients with hypertension is likely to grow as the population ages. The proportion of the elderly population aged 65 years or more in Asia is expected to increase from 7.4% in 2015 to 10.9% in 2030. It is important to note that more than half (54%) of the world's population live in Asia. Aside of being the biggest single risk factor for global deaths, hypertension is also an important precursor and most common risk factor of heart failure (HF). An increase in HF prevalence is clearly related to the rapid epidemiological transition caused by changes in lifestyle in Asian countries. However, the availability of data on HF burden and health care delivery is limited in Asia compared with Europe and North America. This reality has driven the working group of Asian experts for example the HOPE Asia Network to concentrate on hypertension as risk factors for CVD, with the mission to improve the management of hypertension resulting in organ protection toward a goal of achieving "ZERO" CV event in Asia. This paper aims to give an overview regarding the heart problems caused by hypertension in Asia, focus on HF.
The countries of Asia are home to multiple ethnicities. There are ethnic differences in diet, culture, and attitudes towards health screening, access to care, and treatment of chronic diseases. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) have rising incidence and prevalence due to increased affliction with non-communicable diseases of diabetes and hypertension. To prevent the expensive complications of ESKD, one of the most important risk factors to control is hypertension in patients with CKD. We performed a narrative review on the prevalence of CKD in patients with hypertension, the prevalence and control of hypertension in patients with CKD, and the dietary sodium intake in CKD populations.
Nocturnal home blood pressure (BP) monitoring has been used in clinical practice for ~20 years. The authors recently showed that nocturnal systolic BP (SBP) measured by a home BP monitoring (HBPM) device in a Japanese general practice population was a significant predictor of incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) events, independent of office and morning home SBP levels, and that masked nocturnal hypertension obtained by HBPM (defined as nocturnal home BP ≥ 120/70 mmHg and average morning and evening BP
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a risk of hypertension and is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence. In Asian countries, the prevalence of OSA is high, as in Western countries. When blood pressure (BP) is evaluated in OSA individuals using ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM), the BP phenotype often indicates abnormal BP variability, such as increased nighttime BP or abnormal diurnal BP variation, that is, non-dipper pattern, riser pattern, and morning BP surge, and all these conditions have been associated with increased CVD events. Asians have a higher prevalence of increased nighttime BP or morning BP surge than Westerners. Therefore, this review paper focused on OSA and hypertension from an Asian perspective to investigate the importance of the association between OSA and hypertension in the Asian population. Such abnormal BP variability has been shown to be associated with progression of arterial stiffness, and this association could provoke a vicious cycle between abnormal BP phenotypes and arterial stiffness, a phenomenon recognized as systemic hemodynamic atherothrombotic syndrome (SHATS). OSA may be one of the background factors that augment SHATS. An oxygen-triggered nocturnal oscillometric BP measurement device combined with a pulse oximeter for continuous SpO2 monitoring could detect BP variability caused by OSA. In addition to treating the OSA, accurate and reliable detection and treatment of any residual BP elevation and BP variability caused by OSA would be necessary to prevent CVD events. However, more detailed detection of BP variability, such as beat-by-beat BP monitoring, would further help to reduce CV events.
Increased heart rate is a predictor of cardiovascular disease, heart failure, and all-cause mortality. In those with high heart rates, interventions for heart rate reduction have been associated with reductions in coronary events. Asia is a diverse continent, and the prevalences of hypertension and cardiovascular disease differ among its countries. The present analysis of AsiaBP@Home study data investigated differences among resting heart rates (RHRs) in 1443 hypertensive patients from three Asian regions: East Asia (N = 595), Southeast Asia (N = 680), and South Asia (N = 168). This is the first study to investigate self-measured RHR values in different Asian countries/regions using the same validated home BP monitoring device (Omron HEM-7130-AP/HEM-7131-E). Subjects in South Asia had higher RHR values compared with the other two regions, and the regional tendency found in RHR values was different from that found in BP values. Even after adjusting for age, sex, BMI, habitual alcohol consumption, current smoking habit, shift worker, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, history of heart failure, and beta-blocker use, both office and home RHR values in South Asia were the highest among Asia (mean values ± SE of office: East Asia [E] 75.2 ± 1.5 bpm, Southeast Asia [Se] 76.7 ± 1.5 bpm, South Asia [S] 81.9 ± 1.4 bpm; home morning: [E] 69.0 ± 1.2 bpm, [Se] 72.9 ± 1.2 bpm, [S] 74.9 ± 1.1 bpm; home evening: [E] 74.6 ± 1.2 bpm, [Se] 78.3 ± 1.2 bpm, [S] 83.8 ± 1.1 bpm). Given what is known about the impact of RHR on heart disease, our findings suggest the possible benefit of regionally tailored clinical strategies for cardiovascular disease prevention.
The prevalence of hypertension is high and still increasing in almost all communities regardless of high, middle, or low income. The control rate remains low in most countries. Telemedicine offers possibilities to improve blood pressure control. The past two decades witnessed the fast evolving telecommunication from telephone transmission to smart mobile phone technology for telemedicine. There is some evidence from randomized controlled trials that telemonitoring improves blood pressure control. However, it requires co-interventions. The emerging new technology may offer even more possibilities in telemonitoring and co-interventions, for instance, an interactive platform between patients and health professionals for the management of hypertension. Telemedicine might ultimately change the situation of the unsatisfactory management of hypertension in many communities. It helps fully utilize antihypertensive treatment, the most effective cardiovascular prevention, to achieve the goal of ending atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis in humans.
The incidence of large disasters has been increasing worldwide. This has led to a growing interest in disaster medicine. In this review, we report current evidence related to disasters and coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, such as cardiovascular diseases during disasters, management of disaster hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases associated with COVID-19. This review summarizes the time course and mechanisms of disaster-related diseases. It also discusses the use of information and communication technology (ICT) as a cardiovascular risk management strategy to prevent cardiovascular events. During the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, we used the "Disaster Cardiovascular Prevention" system that was employed for blood pressure (BP) monitoring and risk management using ICT. We introduced an ICT-based BP monitoring device at evacuation centers and shared patients' BP values in the database to support BP management by remote monitoring, which led to improved BP control. Effective use of telemedicine using ICT is important for risk management of cardiovascular diseases during disasters and pandemics in the future.
The prevalence of hypertension is increasing along with an aging population, causing millions of premature deaths annually worldwide. Low awareness of blood pressure (BP) elevation and suboptimal hypertension diagnosis serve as the major hurdles in effective hypertension management. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI), however, sheds the light of new strategies for hypertension management, such as remote supports from telemedicine and big data-derived prediction. There is considerable evidence demonstrating the feasibility of AI applications in hypertension management. A foreseeable trend was observed in integrating BP measurements with various wearable sensors and smartphones, so as to permit continuous and convenient monitoring. In the meantime, further investigations are advised to validate the novel prediction and prognostic tools. These revolutionary developments have made a stride toward the future model for digital management of chronic diseases.
Hypertension represents a major burden in Asia, with a high prevalence rate but poor level of awareness and control reported in many countries in the region. Home blood pressure monitoring has been validated as an accurate and reliable measure of blood pressure that can help guide hypertension treatment as well as identify masked and white-coat hypertension. Despite its benefits, there has been limited research into home blood pressure monitoring in Asia. The authors reviewed the current evidence on home blood pressure monitoring in Asia, including but not limited to published literature, data presented at congresses, and national hypertension management guidelines to determine the current utilization of home blood pressure monitoring in clinical practice in the region. Public policies to enable greater access to home blood pressure monitoring and its use in clinical care would add considerably to improving hypertension outcomes in Asia.