Blood Pressure and Nutrition in Adults the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey1

Abstract

To provide a contemporary profile of blood pressure and nutritional and sociodemographic relationships in the adult US population, data from the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey ( NHANES -I), 1971-1975, were analyzed. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures increased with increasing age, but trends were different by sex and race groups. Body mass index (weight/ height2 ) was the nutritional factor most strongly and consistently related to blood pressure. Among dietary constituents, alcohol consumption and calcium and phosphorus intake were the only variables having consistent and independent relationships to blood pressure. Sodium content of food and salt use had no relationship, and sodium/potassium food content had only an inconsistent association. Regarding serum nutritional measures, serum calcium was directly related and serum phosphorus was inversely related to blood pressure. Serum urate, serum aspartate aminotransferase, and hemoglobin were also independently related to systolic and diastolic blood pressures. There were few important differences by race or sex in these correlates. These observations from a representative sample of the US population have useful implications for prevention and treatment of high blood pressure.

Association of Obesity with Hypertension in Adult Female

“…Similar types of findings were reported by different researchers of different countries [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]13 . On the contrary, similar observations were made by other researchers but they did not find any significant difference in body mass index value between the groups.…”

“…Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for global deaths, with at least 2.8 million adult dying annually as a result of Bangladesh J Medicine 2017; 28 : 28-33 obesity 7 .Obesity has been associated with chronic non-communicable diseases like hypertension, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, chronic kidney disease, cancer and arthritis. 8 A number of studies have shown the risk of obesity increases the hypertension .In the Framingham study, a 10% rise in body weight is associated with a 7mmhg rise systolic blood pressure 9 The National Health and Nutrition Examination survey reported linear association between increase in body mass index and systolic, diastolic and pulse pressure in the American population. It is reported that an increase of body mass index of a 1.75 kg/m2 in men and 1.25kg/m2 in women will cause 1 mm Hg rise in systolic blood pressure.…”

Hypertension and obesity

“…Bodily weight and BP correlate positively over the normal and the arbitrarily defined abnormal ranges of these variables (Figure 1). 21 A high intake of sodium, which is a risk factor for the development of hypertension, was identified as a strong independent risk factor for coronary heart disease among obese individuals in the NHANES I. 22 The association between obesity and hypertension, which is independent of ethnicity and socio- Figure 1 Relationship between mean blood pressure (BP), body mass index and age from a population survey carried out in Uruguay.…”

The art and science of interpreting survey data.

“…A published descriptive report details these efforts and the study content. 9 The papers in the Journal supplement examine issues related to health care utilization, health risk behaviors, perinatal health, and dental health. ' Other published results of HHANES have supported some of the previous research in areas such as the prevalence of diabetes and gallstones.…”