Compliance to dietary guidelines on fruit and vegetable intake and prevalence of hypertension among Vietnamese adults, 2015.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the Western dietary guidelines on fruit and vegetable intake are associated with blood pressure parameters and hypertension among Vietnamese adults. METHODS: Participants included 1384 women and 1049 men aged 18-69 years from the 2015 Vietnam national survey on risk factors of non-communicable diseases. Associations between dietary intake score based on the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) guidelines and World Health Organization recommendations on fruit and vegetable consumption and blood pressure parameters and hypertension were evaluated by multivariate regression analyses. RESULTS: Approximately 17.0% and 40.1% of participants met the respective definitions of hypertension according to Joint National Committee 7 (JNC7) and 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Hypertension Guideline. Highest tertiles of DASH scores for fruit intake were significantly associated with increased blood pressure parameters, particularly in women. Hypertension was associated with DASH score for fruit intake with odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for tertiles 2-3 versus tertile 1: 1.31 (0.98, 1.76) and 1.43 (1.05, 1.93) for JNC7; 1.26 (1.01, 1.58) and 1.31 (1.04, 1.66) for 2017 ACC/AHA guideline (all p-trend <0.05). No association with blood pressure parameters and hypertension was observed for DASH score for vegetable intake and meeting World Health Organization recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake. CONCLUSION: We found an unexpected positive association between DASH score for fruit intake and blood pressure parameters and hypertension among Vietnamese adults. More research is needed in this population to understand the relationship between vegetable and fruit intake with hypertension before a firm conclusion and recommendation are made.

Knowledge and Determinants of Health Consequences of Cigarette Smoking Among Vietnamese Adults, 2015.

Background. Vietnam was one of 16 countries that implemented the second round of the GATS (Global Adult Tobacco Survey) in 2015. Aims. To assess knowledge and determinants of health consequences of different types of cigarette smoking among Vietnamese adults. Methods. A cross-sectional study among adults aged 15 years combined with using 15% of the master sample from the national sampling frame of the population and housing census was conducted. Multilevel analysis using Poisson regression was undertaken. Results. Knowledge on the health consequences of cigarette smoking has not significantly improved in the GATS-2015. Adults believe that active smoking had more of an impact on health than secondhand smoking and 24.5% and 43% of them answered that smoking light and e-cigarettes, respectively, causes less harm than regular cigarettes, and 17.3% and 18.1% of adults are not aware of the difference between them, respectively. Conclusion. Household and community's role had little impact in the adult knowledge of smoking health consequences. It is necessary to disseminate information on the "other tobacco product" and to improve public knowledge on specific health consequences, to enhance household and community's role in conveying health education messages to individuals.