Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Blood Pressure in the United States: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2006

High sugar intake has been suggested to be related to hypertension. To examine the associations between intakes of sugar and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and the prevalence of hypertension, we used the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2006. A total of 3,044 participants aged ≥19 years were included. We calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using multivariate logistic regression model. Prevalent hypertension cases were defined as systolic blood pressure (SBP) of ≥140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of ≥90 mmHg. In the multivariate adjusted models, we observed no association between sugar consumption and the prevalence of hypertension. In the model where we adjusted for age, gender, NHANES period and BMI, those who consumed ≥3 times per day of sugar-sweetened beverages had an OR of 1.87 (95% confidence interval, CI = 1.06-3.26) for the prevalence of hypertension compared with those who consumed <1 time per month of these beverages. Further adjustment for other factors attenuated the association; ORs (95% CIs) were 1.21 (0.81-1.81) for 1 time per month-<3 times per week, 1.39 (0.86-2.24) for 3 times per week-<1 times per day, 1.26 (0.80-1.98) for 1-<3 times per day, and 1.50 (0.84-2.68) for ≥3 times per day of sugar-sweetened beverages compared to the <1 time per month (p for trend = 0.33). In conclusion, we found that sugar consumption was not associated with the prevalence of hypertension, however there was suggestion that high sugar-sweetened beverage consumption was associated with high prevalence of hypertension in the US.