The relationship between dietary intake, body composition and blood pressure in male adult miners in Ghana

Abstract

Unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits have been associated with the increasing prevalence of diet-related non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disorders and hypertension. The study was a cross-sectional involving 320 underground male miners in the Obuasi municipality. The research was conducted to generate data on the associations between characteristics of underground miners, their nutrition and blood pressure. Cluster and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the respondents from their residential areas. Independent sample t-test and Spearman's correlation (2 tailed) were used to test the significance of associations between selected continuous variables, while Chi-square test was used to test for significance between categorical variables. Logistic regression was used to determine the extent to which significant variables predicted high blood pressure. Results indicated that apart from vehicle ownership (p = 0.02) and length of working underground (p<0.001). All other socio-economic variables did not indicate any significant association with blood pressure. About 41.6% of the respondents were hypertensive. The prevalence of obesity and overweight cases combined were 62.1%. Potassium intake correlated significantly and positively with systolic (r = 0.11, p = 0.04) and diastolic blood pressure (r = 0.13, p = 0.02). The risk of developing hypertension increased with age, with persons within the age categories of 30-39 years, 40-49 years and 50-59 years had odds ratios of 2.55 (95% CI: 1.12-5.81), 3.34 (95% CI: 1.45-7.68) and 7.56 (95% CI: 2.91-19.84), respectively. Nutrient intake and blood pressure monitoring must be part of the day-to-day programmes of the underground male miners. © 2011 Asian Network for Scientific Information.