Dietary patterns associated with hypertension among Korean males

The objectives of this study were to identify the dietary patterns associated with hypertension among Korean males. Data from the 2001 Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey of 1,869 men aged 20-65 years were used for the analysis. As an initial analysis, a factor analysis was applied to identify major dietary patterns among the subjects. Then logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify the pattern related with hypertension. As a result of the initial analysis, three major dietary patterns were identified. Dietary pattern 1 (traditional) was heavily loaded with vegetables, fish and cereal. Dietary pattern 2 (Western) was loaded with fast foods, bread, meats and dairy products. Dietary pattern 3 (Drinker) was loaded with mostly pork, beer and soju (Korean liquor). From the second stage of the analysis, there was a tendency of positive association between traditional patterns and hypertension risks. However, the tendency did not meet statistical significance level (p<0.05). In summary, unlikely findings from European and American studies, vegetables rich traditional dietary patterns did not show any protective effect on hypertension in Korean males. The Korean dietary practice, which is consuming salted vegetables instead of fresh vegetables, might have played a role in these findings. However, the full explanation of the findings remained to be answered with further investigation since none of the dietary patterns identified showed any statistical significance.