Hypertension is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease worldwide.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a widespread chronic non-communicable disease (NCD)
which is on the rise in developing countries. Evidence based on extensive research
studies on risk factors for NCDs suggests that they could be easily significantly decreased
by simply controlling their risk factors. Although high blood pressure has been
recognized as a leading risk factor for CVD, little research has been done to document
the prevalence and incidence of essential hypertension (EH) in lower socioeconomic
developing countries. One such country is Kenya. It was found in our research study that
Kasigau has an extremely high prevalence of EH. Sixty seven percent of the population
had stage 1 or stage 2 hypertension. No known risk factors showed a significant
correlation with systolic blood pressure, and therefore it was determined that the high
prevalence of EH in Kasigau could be contributed to ulterior causation; possibly a
genetic mutation that causes salt hypersensitivity.