Did you know that more than one third of Singaporeans have hypertension and 54% of them do not know they have it?

Heart health is essential and taking charge early can help prevent serious complications before they happen. 

What Is Hypertension?

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Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, is one of the leading causes of other heart diseases and stroke related deaths. When your blood pressure is consistently high, it causes your heart to work harder to pump blood. This can thicken the heart muscle, damage arteries over time and increase the risk of coronary artery disease, heart failure, heart attack, and stroke. (World Heart Federation, 2025)

What Are The Symptoms? 

Hypertension is a “silent killer” that rarely exhibits symptoms. While symptoms like headaches, dizziness, chest pain, palpitations, and nosebleeds may occur, they may be associated with other illnesses.

Hypertension can lead to health issues (Health Threats From High Blood Pressure, 2025) like:

Stroke

• The brain is not getting enough blood flow caused by clogged blood vessels or even bleeding in the brain. 

Heart Attack

• It occurs when there is significant obstruction in the blood supply to the heart.
• The blockage is due to the accumulation of fat, cholesterol and other substances in the coronary arteries. 

Heart Failure

• The heart muscle does not pump enough blood as well as it should.
• As a result, the body does not get the oxygen it needs. 
  

 

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)

• It develops when fatty deposits, known as plaque, accumulate in the blood vessels. 
• This reduces blood flow to the heart and may eventually lead to impaired heart function.

Kidney Failure 

• Kidneys are unable to filter waste from the blood.
• Over time, the waste accumulates in the body that could be fatal. 

Before these health conditions arise, there is a way to mitigate this by regularly tracking your blood pressure for hypertension and ECG (echocardiogram) to track your heart health. 

What Should I Be Tracking?

When it comes to monitoring your heart health, two important indicators to track are your blood pressure and your ECG (electrocardiogram).

Blood pressure measures the pressure of blood flowing through your arteries. It provides an overall indication of your heart health. High blood pressure, or hypertension, could mean that there is a strain in the heart and arteries from how hard your heart is pumping. Low blood pressure, or hypotension, can reduce the blood flow to vital organs, and can cause symptoms such as dizziness and fainting. 

ECG measures the heart's electrical activity which helps to detect heart irregularities. It can detect arrhythmias, where the heart beats irregularly, myocardial where there are signs of heart muscle damage and other conditions such as heart enlargement, coronary artery disease, and inflammation.

Together, blood pressure and ECG monitoring provide a comprehensive view of your heart’s health, allowing early detection, timely intervention, and better long-term outcomes.

Why Does Tracking It Matter?

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Early detection helps with… 

1. Preventing Serious and Sudden Complications

Until a significant cardiac event occurs, heart disease may not always exhibit warning symptoms. Early detection assists in identifying silent risks before they cause fatal issues, such as a heart attack or stroke.

According to a research done by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), one third  of adults with an early diagnosis of hypertension (35.7%) demonstrated good control over their blood pressure, whereas the remaining 64.3% of the population showed less effective control. (Sia et al., 2024)

2. Providing More Treatment Options 

If the heart disease is caught earlier, doctors can use less invasive and targeted approaches. Such approaches include medications, dietary changes and exercise can slow down conditions from getting worse. However, once the heart disease is in its later stages, the treatment options are narrowed to more invasive approaches such as bypass surgery.

Fortunately, many blockages, even those that cause more than 70% constriction can be safely and efficiently treated with a mix of medicine and therapeutic lifestyle measures. (MacDonald, 2025)

3. Boost Long-Term Health Outcomes

Better health outcomes are directly associated with timely intervention. Early treatment helps to protect the heart's function and ability to withstand physical effort.

According to studies, individuals who start therapy early frequently have higher life expectancies, fewer hospital stays, and slower disease development. (Nzfro, 2025) Therefore, they are also more likely to continue leading active lives.

By ignoring small symptoms, it could delay detection of potential health issues, potentially impacting the effectiveness of treatment. This increases the risk of serious complications. This can cause serious health issues like cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack or stroke

Why Home Testing Is Necessary

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Being able to track heart data at hospitals or clinics is ideal. However, with irregular symptoms like irregular heartbeats or sudden spikes in blood pressure, it is essential to catch them as they are happening. 

Home testing allows you to catch these changes as they happen so you can track your heart data and share it with your doctor for a more informed diagnosis and early intervention.

This helps individuals, especially those experiencing irregular symptoms (Heart Disease - Symptoms and Causes, n.d.) that come and go, to: 

• Get early detection before they escalate into serious conditions.
• Catch abnormalities as they happen, ensuring nothing is missed.
• Provide your doctor with real-time data, enabling them to see patterns and make better informed decisions.
• Enable faster, more accurate diagnosis for better treatment plans.
• Prevent minor concerns from becoming major health issues

OMRON Complete (HEM-7530T) 

Image by: OMRON Healthcare

At the comfort of your own home, you can use OMRON Complete (HEM-7530T). A monitoring tool that helps to measure blood pressure and ECG simultaneously. It is equipped with AFib (Atrial Fibrillation) detection, an important function for identifying a common but often undiagnosed risk factor for stroke.

OMRON is the #1 global best selling brand of blood pressure monitors. With clinically validated accuracy, OMRON Complete HEM-7530T delivers 98% sensitivity and 97% specificity rating, (Lau et al., 2013) making it trusted by healthcare professionals. It has bluetooth connectivity to sync with the OMRON connect app to manage, track and share your health data anytime. 

Your heart health matters. Get it checked now!

References: 

Coronary artery disease (CAD) - Symptoms & causes | Mount Elizabeth Hospitals. (n.d.). Mount Elizabeth Hospitals. https://www.mountelizabeth.com.sg/conditions-diseases/coronary-artery-disease/symptoms-causes 

Get the most out of home blood pressure monitoring. (n.d.). Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/in-depth/high-blood-pressure/art-20047889 

Health threats from high blood pressure. (2025, March 5). American Heart Association. https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/high-blood-pressure/health-threats-from-high-blood-pressure 

Heart disease - Symptoms and causes. (n.d.). Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20353118 

HL Assurance Pte. Ltd. (2025, June 20). High blood pressure: Risks, causes, and treatment. HL Assurance. https://www.hlas.com.sg/high-blood-pressure-stroke-heart-attack/ 

Lau, J. K., Lowres, N., Neubeck, L., Brieger, D. B., Sy, R. W., Galloway, C. D., Albert, D. E., & Freedman, S. B. (2013). iPhone ECG application for community screening to detect silent atrial fibrillation: A novel technology to prevent stroke. International Journal of Cardiology, 165(1), 193–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2013.01.220 

MacDonald, M. R. (2025, May 9). Non-surgical treatment to reverse blocked coronary arteries. The Harley Street Heart & Vascular Centre. https://www.harleystreet.sg/blog/focus-healthcare-non-surgical-treatment-to-reverse-blocked-coronary-arteries/ 

Nzfro. (2025, June 9). The importance of early detection in heart disease prevention - Doral Health & Wellness NY. Doral Health & Wellness. https://doralhw.org/2025/05/13/importance-of-early-detection-heart-disease/ 

Sia, C. H., Simon, O., Loh, P. H., & Poh, K. K. (2024). Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease landscape in Singapore. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, 11, 1342698. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2024.1342698 

World Heart Federation. (2025, July 18). Healthy diet & heart health | WHF – Nutrition, prevention strategies & global action. World Heart Federation. https://world-heart-federation.org/what-we-do/hypertension/