A Cross-Sectional Study on Dietary Habits Associated with Hypertension among Bus Drivers in Tamil Nadu

Introduction: Hypertension is a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular and renal disease in India, and improved detection and treatment of hypertension in India would reduce a preventable burden of cardiac, cerebrovascular and renal disease related to hypertension. It has been estimated that a 2 mm population wide decrease in systolic blood pressure in India, would prevent 151,000 deaths due to coronary artery disease and 153,000 deaths due to stroke would be prevented. Objectives: To identify the prevalence of hypertension among bus drivers. To find out associated dietary habits with hypertension among bus drivers. Methodology: This is a community based cross sectional study conducted to bus drivers to identify the prevalence of hypertension and their dietary habits. Predesigned pretested questionnaire was used with study variable including sociodemographic details, addiction, diet habits, calorie and protein consumption by 24 hr recall method. Results: With the sample size of 400, nearly 91 study participants were known to have hypertension in which prevalence of hypertension among bus drivers was 22.8%. Addiction habits including alcohol 51 (28.3%) and tobacco 32 (26.9%) consumption with hypertension showed that they are not statistically significant with P value of .016 and .199 respectively. Type of diet including vegetarian, non-vegetarian and mixed diet was not statistically significant with hypertension of P-value 0.492. 57.4% are obese with hypertension among the study participants. BMI (Body Mass Index) was strongly associated with hypertension among bus drivers with P value of 0.000. Conclusion: This study highlighted that 22.8% of participants were known case of hypertension and they are not associated with diet type and addiction habits. Dietary habits and lifestyle disorders like obesity is associated with hypertension.