Research Article Prevalence and Predictors of Undiagnosed Hypertension in an Apparently Healthy Western Indian Population Anand N. Shukla, 1 Tarun Madan, 1 Bhavesh M. Thakkar, 1 Meena M. Parmar, 1 and Komal H. Shah 2 1 Cardiology Department, U. N. Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Centre (UNMICRC), Asarwa, Ahmedabad 380016, India 2 Research Department, U. N. Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Centre (UNMICRC), Asarwa, Ahmedabad 380016, India Correspondence should be addressed to Anand N. Shukla; dranand1978@yahoo.co.in Received 31 July 2014; Revised 19 January 2015; Accepted 16 February 2015 Academic Editor: Peter N. Lee Copyright © 2015 Anand N. Shukla et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Tis epidemiological study was designed to evaluate the prevalence of undetected hypertension in an apparently healthy western Indian population having no history of major illness. 3629 individuals of ≥18 years of age were included in the study. Hypertension (HTN) was defned as systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) ≥ 90 mmHg and prehypertension (PHTN) as SBP ≥ 120–139 mmHg or DBP ≥ 80–89 mmHg, but without HTN. Te prevalence of undiagnosed HTN in the total population was 26% and was 11% and 40% in the young (≤40-year) and old (>40-year) populations, respectively. Te prevalence of PHTN, 40% in the overall population, was nearly the same in the young (39%) and the old population (42%). Te risk factor most strongly associated with PHTN and HTN was obesity, showing the highest odds ratio in the overall (PHTN 2.14; 95% CI 1.20–3.81; HTN 2.72; 95% CI 1.53–4.85), the young (PHTN 2.29; 95% CI 1.25–4.21; HTN 2.92; 95% CI 1.59–5.35), and the old (PHTN 1.13; 95% CI 0.65–1.96; HTN 1.38; 95% CI 0.79–2.4) populations. Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases which must not be ignored, especially in the western Indian population. 1. Introduction Hypertension (HTN), being a major risk factor for cardio- vascular diseases (CVDs), is an important issue of medical and public health. It is the most common condition seen in primary care which leads to myocardial infarction, stroke, renal failure, and death if not detected early and treated appropriately. Te western Indian population is more suscep- tible to CVDs, being afected at a younger age (≤40 years of age), with risk factors possibly also starting to show up at an early age period [1]. Prevalence of HTN increases with increasing age which could be used as a measure of its future CVD burden. More than half of the individuals of 60–69-year age group had HTN whereas in 70-year and older folks three quarters of the population are afected [2]. Some observational studies (a few with a study size of more than 1 million) indicate that death from ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke increases progressively and linearly from a blood pressure (BP) level as low as 115 mmHg of systolic BP (SBP) and 75 mmHg of diastolic BP (DBP). For every 20 mmHg SBP or 10 mmHg DBP increase, the rate of mortality doubles, mainly afecting individuals of the 40–89- year age group [3, 4]. Reports also suggest that the prevalence of HTN is rapidly increasing in developing countries and is one of the leading causes of death and disability [5]. Risk of cardiovascular events in Asian Indians is higher at relatively lower level of BP. In terms of attributable death, raised BP is one of the leading behavioral and physiological risk factors to which 13% of global deaths are attributed. Hypertension is reported to be the fourth contributor to premature death in developed countries and the seventh in developing countries [6]. Ethnic diferences in HTN had been reported in various populations, including Indians [7] and hence the assessment of risk factors contributing to HTN in particular community is worth evaluating. Te main aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence and predictors of undiagnosed Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Epidemiology Volume 2015, Article ID 649184, 5 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/649184