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Nutrition Epidemiology Highlights Original Article

Fruit and vegetable intake and mortality from cardiovascular disease in Japan: a 24-year follow-up of the NIPPON DATA80 Study

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

There have been few studies on the association of fruit and vegetable (FV) intake with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in Asian populations where both dietary habits and disease structure are different from western countries. No study in Asia has found its significant association with stroke. We examined associations of FV intake with mortality risk from total CVD, stroke and coronary heart diseases (CHDs) in a representative Japanese sample.

Methods:

A total of 9112 participants aged from 24-year follow-up data in the NIPPON DATA80, of which baseline data were obtained in the National Nutrition Survey Japan in 1980, were studied. Dietary data were obtained from 3-day weighing dietary records. Participants were divided into sex-specific quartiles of energy adjusted intake of FV. Multivariate-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) were calculated between strata of the total of FV intake, fruit intake and vegetable intake. The adjustment included age, sex, smoking, drinking habit and energy adjusted intakes of sodium and some other food groups.

Results:

Participants with higher FV intake were older, ate more fish, milk and dairy products and soybeans and legumes and ate less meat. Multivariate-adjusted HR (95% confidence interval; P; P for trend) for the highest versus the lowest quartile of the total of FV intake was 0.74 (0.61–0.91; 0.004; 0.003) for total CVD, 0.80 (0.59–1.09; 0.105; 0.036) for stroke and 0.57 (0.37–0.87; 0.010; 0.109) for CHD.

Conclusions:

The results showed that higher total intake of FVs was significantly associated with reduced risk of CVD mortality in Japan.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare under the auspices of the Japanese Association for Cerebro-cardiovascular Disease Control, a Research Grant for Cardiovascular Diseases (7A-2) from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and a Health and Labor Sciences Research Grant, Japan (Comprehensive Research on Aging and Health (H11-Chouju-046, H14-Chouju-003, H17-Chouju-012, H19-Chouju-Ippan-014) and Comprehensive Research on Life-Style Related Diseases including Cardiovascular Diseases and Diabetes Mellitus (H22-Jyunkankitou-Seisyu-Sitei-017, H25-Jyunkankitou-Seisyu-Sitei-022)).

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Correspondence to N Okuda.

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Additional information

The NIPPON DATA80/90 Research Group Chairperson: Hirotsugu Ueshima (Department of Health Science, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Shiga, Japan). Co-chairpersons: Akira Okayama (Research Institute of Strategy for Prevention, Tokyo, Japan) for the NIPPON DATA80, and Tomonori Okamura (Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan) for the NIPPON DATA90. Research members: Shigeyuki Saitoh (Sapporo Medical University School of Health Science, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan), Kiyomi Sakata (Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Iwate Medical University, Morioka, Iwate, Japan), Atsushi Hozawa (Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan), Takehito Hayakawa (Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan), Yosikazu Nakamura (Department of Public Health, Jichi Medical University, Shimotsuke, Tochigi, Japan), Yasuhiro Matsumura (Faculty of Health and Nutrition, Bunkyo University, Chigasaki, Kanagawa, Japan), Nobuo Nishi (Center for International Collaboration and Partnership, National Institute of Health and Nutrition, Tokyo, Japan), Nagako Okuda (Department of Nutritional Epidemiology, National Institute of Health and Nutrition, Tokyo, Japan), Fumiyoshi Kasagi (Institute of Radiation Epidemiology, Radiation Effects Association, Tokyo, Japan), Toru Izumi (Faculty of Medicine, Kitasato University, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan), Toshiyuki Ojima (Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan), Koji Tamakoshi (Department of Public Health and Health Information Dynamics, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan), Hideaki Nakagawa (Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Kanazawa Medical University, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan), Katsuyuki Miura, Takayoshi Ohkubo, Yoshikuni Kita (Department of Health Science, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Shiga, Japan), Yasuyuki Nakamura (Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Kyoto Women’s University, Kyoto, Japan), Katsushi Yoshita (Osaka City University Graduate School of human life science, Osaka, Japan), Aya Kadota (Department of School Nursing and Health Education, Osaka Kyoiku University, Kashiwara, Osaka, Japan), Kazunori Kodama (Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Hiroshima, Japan) and Yutaka Kiyohara (Department of Environmental Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan).

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Okuda, N., Miura, K., Okayama, A. et al. Fruit and vegetable intake and mortality from cardiovascular disease in Japan: a 24-year follow-up of the NIPPON DATA80 Study. Eur J Clin Nutr 69, 482–488 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2014.276

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