Dietary niacin may help prevent high BP: JAMA

China: Optimal intake of diet rich in niacin may help in the primary prevention of hypertension, finds a recent study in the journal JAMA Network Open. The dietary sources of niacin mainly included vegetables, meat and meat products, and cereal and cereal products.

Hypertension or high blood pressure (BP) is the leading cause of noncommunicable disease, disability, and mortality worldwide. According to WHO, an estimated 1.13 billion people worldwide have hypertension, most (two-thirds) living in low- and middle-income countries. Considering this, there is an urgent need for identifying high-risk individuals and develop strategies for effective primary prevention to reverse the rapid rise in hypertension. 

Niacin, also known as nicotinic acid or vitamin B3, is a vitamin precursor of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, and is essential for energy metabolism and redox reactions. Several randomized clinical trials assessing the effect of niacin supplementation have yielded inconsistent results. However, only limited research has been done on the association between dietary niacin intake and hypertension. The prospective association between dietary niacin intake and incident hypertension risk is not known in the general population. To fill this knowledge gap, Zhuxian Zhang, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, and colleagues aimed to determine the prospective association between dietary niacin intake and new-onset hypertension, and examined factors that may modify the association among Chinese adults.