Fruit and vegetables consumption and incident hypertension: dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

The role of dietary factors on chronic diseases seems essential in the potentially adverse or preventive effects. However, no evidence of dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies has verified the association between the intake of fruit and/or vegetables and the risk of developing hypertension. The PubMed and Embase were searched for prospective cohort studies. A generic inverse-variance method with random effects model was used to calculate the pooled relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Generalized least squares trend estimation model was used to calculate the study-specific slopes for the dose-response analyses. Seven articles comprised nine cohorts involving 185 676 participants were assessed. The highest intake of fruit or vegetables separately, and total fruit and vegetables were inversely associated with the incident risk of hypertension compared with the lowest level, and the pooled RRs and 95% CIs were 0.87 (0.79, 0.95), 0.88 (0.79, 0.99) and 0.90 (0.84, 0.98), respectively. We also found an inverse dose-response relation between the risk of developing hypertension and fruit intake, and total fruit and vegetables consumption. The incident risk of hypertension was decreased by 1.9% for each serving per day of fruit consumption, and decreased by 1.2% for each serving per day of total fruit and vegetables consumption. Our results support the recommendation to increase the consumption of fruit and vegetables with respect to preventing the risk of developing hypertension. However, further large prospective studies and long-term high-quality randomized controlled trials are still needed to confirm the observed association.