Dietary iron and blood pressure

doi:10.1136/bmj.a547

Published 15 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a547
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a547

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Dietary iron and blood pressure

Iron intake may affect blood pressure, but further confirmationis needed

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

High blood pressure is a leading risk factor for mortality anda major preventable cause of disability worldwide. Nutritionaland lifestyle factors are key determinants of blood pressureacross populations, and lifestyle modifications—includingweight reduction if overweight or obese, reduced dietary sodiumintake, increased dietary potassium intake, moderation of alcoholconsumption, adoption of the DASH (dietary approaches to stophypertension) diet, and regular aerobic exercise—are effectiveat reducing blood pressure.¹

In the linked study (doi: 10.1136/bmj.a258), Tzoulaki and colleaguesassess the association between iron and red meat intake andblood pressure using data from the international collaborativestudy of macro-/micronutrients and blood pressure (INTERMAP),a large cross sectional study of the nutritional determinantsof blood pressure across 17 population samples from Japan, China,the United Kingdom, and the United States.² The authors foundsignificant inverse associations between intake of total ironand non-haem iron and systolic blood pressure. Conversely, . . . [Full text of this article]

Saverio Stranges, associate clinical professor of cardiovascular epidemiology¹, Eliseo Guallar, associate professor²

¹ Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick Medical School, Coventry CV2 2DX, ² Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA

S.Stranges@warwick.ac.uk

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Relation of iron and red meat intake to blood pressure: cross sectional epidemiological study: Ioanna Tzoulaki, Ian J Brown, Queenie Chan, Linda Van Horn, Hirotsugu Ueshima, Liancheng Zhao, Jeremiah Stamler, Paul Elliott for the International Collaborative Research Group on Macro-/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure
BMJ 2008 337: a258. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]