New research recommends that people with high blood pressure choose a fruit-milk diet

In July this year, Zuo Hui, a professor at the School of Public Health of Soochow University and his team, together with Wang Bo, chief physician of the Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, published an academic paper on exploring the dietary patterns suitable for hypertensive patients in Frontiers in Nutrition, which attracted industry attention
.

Hypertension is not only one of the major risk factors affecting the global burden of disease, but also a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease
.
Primary prevention of hypertension has become a global public health priority
.
In China, the prevalence of hypertension increased from 5.
11% in 1959 to 23.
2%
in 2015.
In addition to reasonable drug treatment for hypertensive patients, more attention should be paid to the risk factors
for hypertension.
Diet plays an important role in the occurrence and development of hypertension, and in 1995, scientists tried to prevent the occurrence of hypertension through diet, and established a diet to prevent and treat hypertension - Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH).

This dietary pattern has been continuously updated and has been shown to help reduce the incidence
of high blood pressure.

In recent years, different dietary patterns have been established at home and abroad according to their unique eating habits, so as to further explore the relationship between dietary patterns and hypertension, in order to seek an eating pattern
that can prevent the occurrence of hypertension or delay the progression of hypertension.
However, China is vast and rich in food, with different dietary patterns varying
from region to region and cultural environment.
So far, research on the relationship between dietary patterns and high blood pressure in eastern China has been limited
.
The aim of the study was to provide up-to-date evidence
on the association between dietary patterns and hypertension among communities in eastern China.

The study is a cross-sectional study, the data is from the 2018-2019 Suzhou Residents' Food Consumption and Health Status Survey, including adults aged 18 or older, through 3 consecutive days (including two working days and one weekend) 24-hour diet review method and weighing method to obtain residents' dietary intake
.
Factor analysis was used to define dietary patterns, and multivariate logistic regression models were used to explore the relationship between dietary patterns and hypertension, and covariates were adjusted
.

The study explored four dietary patterns, namely rice-vegetable mode, fast food model, fruit-dairy model, and wheat-meat pattern
.
The results showed that the fruit-milk pattern had an improved effect
on hypertension.
This dietary pattern is rich in nutrients: the dietary fiber rich in fruits can improve high blood pressure and other cardiovascular diseases by altering the gut microbiome; Apples and citrus fruits, which account for the main part of fruit intake, are rich in minerals such as potassium and magnesium, which are beneficial to relieve symptoms of high blood pressure; Dairy products such as milk and yogurt are good sources of calcium and vitamin D, which have been shown to work together in vascular smooth muscle cells to regulate blood pressure
by regulating intracellular calcium concentrations.

One of the main components of the fruit-milk model is yogurt, which can effectively control weight, maintain energy homeostasis and blood sugar levels, and contribute to better metabolism
.
Being overweight or obese is one of the main risk factors for high blood pressure, which can be lowered by regulating body weight
.
The study also found that people who tended to a fruit-milk pattern had less alcohol intake, and alcohol consumption was strongly associated with
elevated blood pressure.

There was no correlation between the other three dietary patterns and hypertension, possibly because: in the rice-vegetable model, although vegetables are rich in dietary fiber, rice, edible oil and salt are also the main components of the model, and the beneficial and harmful effects may cancel each other, so there is no correlation between them and hypertension; Similarly, the main ingredients of the fast food model are not only high-calorie, high-salt foods such as fried foods, instant noodles, and beverages, but also nuts and beans and their products that play a protective role; In the wheat-meat model, although red meat is one of the main components of intake, people who tend to the wheat-meat model also tend to eat fewer desserts, alcoholic beverages, etc
.

Compared with the study conducted in eastern China in 2016, fruit-milk is a new dietary pattern, which means that the eating habits in the region are changing, and at the same time, the fruit-milk pattern is negatively correlated with hypertension, which provides a new direction
for the prevention and control of hypertension among community residents in eastern China.
In the future, more prospective studies should be conducted to explore the relationship between
diet and hypertension in different parts of China.
According to the results of this study, it is recommended that patients with hypertension choose fruit-milk diet patterns containing fruits and dairy products to prevent and control the occurrence and development
of hypertension.

(Source: Zhongying Hui Nutrition and Health Research Institute)

China Food News(November 16, 2022, Version 03)

(Responsible editor: Wang Jiayi).