 Hypotension is a very common disease. People think India is a diabetic capital but hypertension is much much more common than diabetes. In any given population the prevalence of hypertension is double that of diabetes. It's a silent killer. Most of the time people don't even know that they are hypertensive. By age of 50-55, 90% of the population becomes hypertensive. That doesn't mean it starts at 50-55. It starts way early. We have done school health studies where we have found the hypertension to be 3 to 4% even in school children and with time it increases. More and more people become hypertensive. And today's lifetime hypertension is part and parcel of the you know one's health now. The predictors of hypertension are overweight, having sleep apnea, lack of exercise, lack of sleep. These are the ones which predispose people to be hypertensive. There are myths about hypertension. People think hypertension is associated with short temper or it's you know it's only people who are irritable. It's not true. Only way to pick up hypertension is to measure BP regularly. There is no other way to pick up hypertension. You'll be surprised there are people who are very calm and who have no absolutely who look very peaceful even they tend to be hypertensive. Now this is a silent killer. Most of the time people don't even know that they're hypertensive and they end up with a major complication. When we asked them they keep telling that we had no symptoms hence you know we didn't get it tested. It's very important to get it tested and it's very easy to test it. Any healthcare professional can check a BP. There are electronic BP monitors now which are quite reliable so BP can be easily checked at any point. The complications are very deadly and most of the time irreversible. The most important complication of hypertension is actually stroke and intracranial bleed and both these could be very disabling and once it occurs it's very difficult to reverse it. Other important problem which hypertension produces is actually heart attack. It also leads to heart failure where heart becomes very weak and the person become you know is very symptomatic when they walk. To prevent hypertension most there are lifestyle changes and there are drugs which can be used. Lifestyle means that lose weight at least 5 to 8 kgs and try to have a low salt diet. It is not no salt it is low salt so whatever is there in the cooking is fine but added salt should be avoided. Good exercise especially in the morning is known to decrease the BP for whole day and also fight 6 to 7 hours of sleep every day must sleep is a must to prevent or even to control hypertension. Hypertension is a very deadly disease but there are good effective medicines which are available to control hypertension. Once diagnosed to be hypertensive it is very important that people try the lifestyle change. Lifestyle changes are must even if you're taking any medicine but if it doesn't get controlled with lifestyle it's important to use these medicines. Most of the time they say used for lifelong but then they do their job. Once the blood pressure is controlled the damage produced by blood pressure is reduced considerably and it's very important to control blood pressure. It is very important to have regular checkups and test your blood pressure. It's not enough to just take medicine and think that the blood pressure is controlled. It's important to go for regular checkup and make sure that the blood pressure is controlled. I Dr. Ranjan Shetty head of department of cardiology wanted to give the important message on hypertension that it is a silent killer. It's very important that we all you know diagnose it and treat it effectively.