A new study suggests a link between meals eaten outside the home and the risks of developing hypertension.
People who eat out a lot are likely taking in more calories, higher levels of saturated fats and more salt, all eating habits considered causes of high blood pressure, say researchers at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore.
Hypertension - risky enough in itself - can dramatically elevate the risk of a number of health problems, including Type 2 diabetes, and is the leading risk factor for death from cardiovascular disease, they point out.
For the study, Professor Tazeen Jafar looked for eating behaviors linked to hypertension in a population of young adults in Southeast Asia, surveying around 500 university-attending participants who were 18 to 40 years old and in Singapore.
The survey collected data on a number of parameters, including blood pressure and body mass index, and also looked at lifestyle factors, including the number of meals eaten outside the home and levels of physical activity.
Pre-hypertension was detected in 27.4 percent of the total study population, and 38 percent dined away from home more than 12 times per week, the researchers found.
The condition was much more prevalent in men, at 49 percent, than in women, at 9 percent.
Those in the study population who displayed pre-hypertension or full-on hypertension were more likely than those without to eat many meals away from home each week; showed a higher body mass rate; and demonstrated a lower level of physical activity, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Hypertension.
Even eating a single extra meal out every week raised the risks of pre-hypertension by at least 6 percent, they reported.
The problem of eating habits linked to high blood pressure has been researched previously in other parts of the world, but the latest study is the first to address the particular populations at risk in Southeast Asia, Jafar says.
"While there have been studies conducted in the United States and Japan to find behaviors associated with hypertension, very few have surveyed a Southeast Asian population," said Jafar. "Our research plugs that gap and highlights lifestyle factors associated with pre-hypertension and hypertension that are potentially modifiable, and would be applicable to young adults globally, especially those of Asian descent."
Such behavior modification could be brought about through efforts in both clinical settings, with doctors advising young adults to change their lifestyles, and involving policy recommendations to regulate the amounts of fats and salts in restaurant meals, the researchers said.
