Abstract

The effect of carbohydrates, fat and protein consumption on the blood pressure of adolescents was investigated from the cross sectional data. The two major areas of inquiry were : 1)measuring the variation of blood pressure at various levels of macronutient intake. 2)measuring the relative importance between the factor of nutrient intake and physical growth. A total of 726 students(341 boys and 385 girls) in the first grade of middle school in Kangwha country were studied for their dietary consumption and physical growth as well as blood pressure. Multiple regression analysis was used as the analytical method to identify the relative importance between the factors. Besides the macronutrient consumption, other nutrients such as vitamin and mineral intakes were included in the regression model. The results showed a variation of blood pressure by macronutrient intake level was in consistant both in blood pressure and by gender. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased with increasing protein intake for girls(p<0.05). However, it was not observed in the case of boys. The systolic blood pressure of boys showed a tendency to decrease with fat intake increase, while their diastolic blood pressure showed the opposite trend. Results of the regression analysis showed that physical growth was a more influential factor than nutrition on blood pressure for both sexes. This could imply that the dietary hypertension factors observed in adults may not be operative generally in a population with normotensive blood pressure during growth.

• Keywords: macronutrients intake; blood pressure; adolescents;