A nutrient-wide association study on blood pressure.

Area of Science:

• Nutritional Science
• Cardiovascular Health
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Understanding nutrient-blood pressure (BP) associations is crucial for public health.
• A comprehensive, unbiased, nutrient-wide approach is needed to validate these relationships.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically evaluate and validate associations between a wide range of nutrients and BP.
• To investigate the impact of dietary and supplemental nutrient intake on systolic and diastolic BP.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 4680 participants in the International Study of Macro/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure (INTERMAP).
• Employed multiple linear regression analyses, stratified into training and testing sets.
• Externally validated findings using four US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cohorts.

Main Results:

• Identified direct associations between alcohol, sodium-to-potassium ratio, and systolic BP.
• Found inverse associations between dietary phosphorus, magnesium, iron, thiamin, folacin, and riboflavin with systolic BP.
• Confirmed inverse associations for dietary folacin and riboflavin with diastolic BP, with effect sizes up to 0.97 mm Hg reduction in systolic BP.

Conclusions:

• Significant inverse associations were identified between B vitamins (folacin, riboflavin, thiamin) and BP.
• This study provides a systematic and unbiased evaluation of nutrient-BP associations.
• Highlights previously under-investigated relationships between B vitamins and blood pressure regulation.