Objective: To explore the relationship between dietary pattern and hypertension in Taiwan adults.
Methods: According to the inclusion criteria, a total of 65 140 subjects aged 20-75 years who participating health examination in the Meizhao health centers in Taiwan were included in 2006. The food intake and lifestyle pattern of them were accessed. The identification of hypertension was based on the diagnostic criteria from JNC-VII. Factor analysis and multivariate logistic regression model was used to explore the associations of dietary patterns with hypertension for males and females.
Results: Four dietary patterns were identified, namely "high protein" pattern, "prudent" pattern, "western" pattern, and "egg and dairy foods" pattern. After age, gender, BMI, physical activity, education level, smoking and alcohol intake being adjusted, relative to the "western" pattern, the risk of hypertension in males with "prudent", "high protein" and egg and dairy foods" patterns were significantly lower, the OR were 0. 95 (95% CI 0. 92 - 0.98), 0.97 (95% CI 0.94 - 0.99) and 0.94 (95% CI 0.91 - 0.97), respectively. Significant lower risk of hypertension in females for the "high protein" pattern group was found, with OR of 0.96 (95% CI 0. 2 -0.99).
Conclusion: Our results indicated that increasing the intake of protein, dairy products, vegetables and fruit was related to a reduction of high blood pressure risk, especially in men.