Red meat, poultry, and egg consumption with the risk of hypertension: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

The objective of this study was to examine the associations of red meat, poultry, and egg consumption with the risk of hypertension (HTN). The electronic databases of PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase were searched up to August 2017, for prospective cohort studies on the associations between red meat, poultry, or egg consumption with the risk of HTN. The pooled relative risk (RR) of HTN for the highest vs. lowest category of red meat, poultry, and egg consumption as well as their corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. A total of eight articles made up of 10 prospective cohort studies, which involved 351,819 participants and 5000 HTN cases, were included in this meta-analysis. Specifically, nine studies were related to red meat consumption, and the overall multi-variable adjusted RR showed a positive association between red meat consumption and the risk of HTN (RR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.11-1.35; P < 0.001). In the subgroup analysis that consisted of five studies, both processed (RR = 1.12, 95% CI: 1.02-1.23; P = 0.02) and unprocessed (RR = 1.19, 95% CI: 1.04-1.36; P = 0.01) red meat were associated with a higher risk of HTN. In addition, in the six studies related to poultry consumption, the overall multi-variable adjusted RR demonstrated that poultry consumption was also associated with a higher risk of HTN (RR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.03-1.28; P = 0.015). Moreover, three of the studies that were included were related to egg consumption, and the overall multi-variable-adjusted RR showed that egg consumption was associated with a lower risk of HTN (RR = 0.79, 95% CI: 0.68-0.91; P = 0.001). The existing evidence suggested that red meat (both processed and unprocessed) and poultry consumption were associated with a higher risk of HTN, while egg consumption was associated with a lower risk of HTN. Owing to the limited number of studies, more well-designed prospective cohort studies are needed to further elaborate the issues examined in this study.