Scope: Diet and gut microbiota are involved in blood pressure regulations, but few studies have focused on the constipation patients. The study seeks to identify differences in gut microbiota between hypertensive and normotensive subjects in constipation patients, analyzes the relationship between dietary patterns and blood pressure, and explores mediation effects of gut microbiota.
Methods and results: Gut microbial genera and dietary information of 186 functional constipation participants are characterized by 16S rRNA sequencing and a food frequency questionnaire. The hypertensive subjects shows lower α-diversity and β-diversity of gut microbiota than normotensive (p < 0.05) and 17 differential microbial genera. The dried-beans intake frequency inversely correlated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure after multivariate adjustment (r = -0.273, p-FDR < 0.01; r = -0.251, p-FDR = 0.026, respectively). Logistic regression indicates that the individuals often consumed dried-beans have a lower hypertension risk than those never consumed [OR = 0.137, 95% CI: (0.022, 0.689), p = 0.022]. A marginal mediating effect of the genus Monoglobus is observed for the association between high-fiber dietary pattern and hypertension.
Conclusion: In patients with functional constipation, hypertension-related gut microbial differences are identified. Dried-beans intake is inversely associated with blood pressure, and a genus may potentially mediate the association between high-fiber dietary pattern and hypertension.
Keywords: beans; constipation; dietary pattern; gut microbiota; hypertension.
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