Background: Hypertension is one of the major public health problems in Korea. Recently, there has been a growing interest on the effects of the excessive intake of sodium and obesity on chronic diseases. Under the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES), this research was conducted to examine the relationship between dietary sodium intake, obesity status, and incidence of hypertension.
Methodology: subjects of the study included 5,784 men and women aged 40-69 who were not previously diagnosed with hypertension; they were followed up for 12 years. The Multivariate Cox proportional hazard model was used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between dietary sodium intake, obesity status, and hypertension.
Results: The adjusted hazard ratio of hypertension was 2.02 (95% CI 1.59-2.57) in the group who had sodium intake of >4,000mg/day and obese status (25.0 ≤ Body Mass Index (BMI)), compared to the reference group who had sodium intake of ≤2,000mg/day and normal BMI (18.5 ≤ BMI < 23.0); men had adjusted HR of 1.86 [95% CI 1.30-2.66]; women had adjusted HR of 2.02 [95% CI 1.46-2.80]. The risk of hypertension incidence was found to increase in relation to higher sodium intake and BMI.
Conclusion: This study suggests that reducing sodium intake and controlling obesity are required for the prevention of hypertension.
|