Consuming dairy containing saturated fat is known to increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, but no substantial relationship between dairy consumption and hypertension is known. Besides, previous observations have indicated an inverse association with systolic blood pressure. This study aims to determine the association of dairy consumption with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and the risk of hypertension.
This Mendelian randomization study included data from a total of 22 studies with 171,213 participants, along with 10 additional studies with 26,119 participants for observational analysis. The primary outcome of the study was the change in systolic blood pressure and incident hypertension.
When compared with the CC genotype, the CC genotype of LCT-13910rs4988235 was associated with increased dairy consumption (55 g/day). CC genotype of LCT-13910rs4988235 was not associated with any statistically significant changes in systolic blood pressure (0.31) or hypertension (1.01). The meta-analyses of published studies showed that higher dairy intake had no significant relation with change in systolic blood pressure. The observational analysis suggested that each serving per day in dairy consumption was associated with a 0.11 decreased odds of lower systolic pressure.
The research concluded that there was a week inverse association between dairy intake and systolic blood pressure. The data was not significant for the risk of hypertension.
Ref: https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.j1000
