CAN PLANT FOOD LOWER HYPERTENSION 1

Can Plant Food Lower Hypertension?

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CAN PLANT FOOD LOWER HYPERTENSION 2

Can plant food lower hypertension?

Database used summary

The article that was used for this research was from PubMed Central accessed via

National Library of Medicine. This article was compiled using information of random controlled

trails from both PubMed and Cochrane. National library of Medicine contains information from

all verified medical databases in the US especially PubMed, Cochrane and Medline. It publishes

evidence-based information and articles from the other databases and acts as gateway to access

information from the other databases. PubMed central was created and run by national Library of

Medicine (NLM, 2021). It acts as database of recorded journal information and trials from NLM

and operates under the legislative mandate of NLM. The NLM has providence has allowed

PubMed Central to collaborate with other databases to create more detailed articles. This is what

allowed PubMed to borrow from Cochrane and Medline to create the article used for this paper.

The reason why PubMed used Cochrane database is because Cochrane carries so many random

controlled trials which makes it a rich source of information about certain topics (Lee et al.,

2020). NLM has also allowed PubMed Central to have labs that are also used to compile their

digital articles for the database and acts as long-term archive for the NLM and NIH.

Article summary: Study approach

The article name is Effects of vegetarian diets on lowering blood pressure. It is based

around meta-analysis and trial analysis using information found in PubMed and Cochrane

collaboration trials (Lee et al., 2020). These enabled the authors to perform a systematic review

of the other databases information based on their trials. The databases selection was based on the

availability of Random Controlled trials. The articles from those databases that were selected had
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to be trails within a period of two to 70 weeks (Lee et al., 2020). The 2-to-70-week study period

used for this article allowed the trials to use purely vegetarian food and a control experiment that

used meat-based food. The study aimed to record changes in systolic and diastolic pressure of the

blood within those weeks (Lee et al., 2020). If an article lacked a vegetarian coupled with a non-

vegetarian control, the authors declined it from their research. This is because they needed a two-

sided view of the issue. The review of these articles enabled them to clearly determine if plant-

based diet helps control hypertension.

Article summary: sample size and population

The overall research narrowed down to 15 random controlled trials for 856 people that

met their eligibility criteria (Lee et al., 2020). The total number of the trials collected for this

study was 2656 total trials published by either PubMed or Cochrane collaboration. Many of these

studies were eliminated using criteria such as presence of a control experiment. At first, they

remained with 55 trials but further selection criteria removed 40 of the remaining trials. After

removing all the other age brackets only one sample was outside the age. All the fourteen were

adults and the last sample was in children. They chose many of the adult samples because much

of the world population that has hypertension develops it in their adulthood. They were exposed

to either lacto-ovo-vegetarian food or full vegan food (Lee et al., 2020). 5 of those were exposed

to lacto-ovo-vegetarian food and the other 10 samples to full vegan diet (Lee et al., 2020). They

also included a diabetic sub group that was used to study how participants with both

hypertension and diabetes react to the diet.

Study outcomes in vegan diet trial

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The study trials for the vegan diet trails showed positive results that the plant-based food

can lower hypertension. Within the study period the patients exposed to this diet showed

continued improvement in their diastolic blood pressure (Lee et al., 2020). This result was

recorded from all the participants in these trials regardless of other constraints such as age. The

authors noticed that patients who had diabetes within this group recorded the highest change into

positive results compared to the nondiabetic trials (Lee et al., 2020). The overall performance

showed that plant-based food is an effective diet that can be administered to the hypertensive

patients.

Study outcomes for lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet

This was the control experiment and had more participants than the vegan diet. It

followed the same procedure for allocation of diet as the intervention experiment. The general

outcome showed that these participants recorded no significant change to their blood pressure

(Lee et al., 2020). These results were also the same regardless of their age even on children. For

the diabetic sub-group, the meat-based diet did not also show any change in their diastolic blood

pressure. This shows that meat-based diet does not increase or decrease blood pressure

significantly as all the participants showed similar results across the board. This is a positive

outcome too since it can be a great starting point in tailoring the best diet for patients.

Study outcomes validity

These research outcomes have been well carried out following the right procedures. The

procedures were well detailed which is one of the most essential parts of research which help the

reader to follow through. The evidence was collected systematically and was recorded clearly to

help the reader understand the whole process. This helps one to notice the significant details that
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the procedure outcomes intended to pass to the reader. The participants selected were fit for the

procedure and the other outside blood pressure constraints such as diabetes increased the scope

of understanding the significance of plant-based diet. These constraints used allows me to be

able to trust the whole process used to come up with these results. This is because they met all

the requirements for a scientific research experiment. This is because they followed the right

path and maintained their criteria that produced positive results. They are valid to my practice

because they provide me with the correct information that is well experimented and accurately

collected. The procedure exploited several scenarios such as dividing the participants into a

group to see if results change.

Study outcomes reliability

This information based on the validity they can be reliable to my nursing practice. This is

because they can be used practically on patients since they have proved to be able to produce the

desired change. They will produce the desired results that once a patient follows the vegan diet,

their blood pressure will decline significantly. These results help also to have confidence in

telling patients to avoid meat-based food since that diet does not help improve their medical

situation. They are also reliable because the diet can be given to any person who has

hypertension regardless of their age. The last reason I think they are reliable is the fact that the

study has proved that plant food would be helpful to other patients such as the diabetic. The

overall reason why they are reliable is that all of the desired results were collected without

compromise of the procedure which gives extra confidence in the positive results.

Trials risk of bias

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The authors acknowledged that the random controlled trials used had a low risk of bias

except one where intervention allocation was disclosed (Lee et al., 2020). Disclosing this

information means that the participant might deviate and control the outcome of the

experiment. The reason why the study was low risk biased is that they used the same

measurement criteria on all the subjects (Lee et al., 2020). Next is that the procedure used the

same criteria to record the outcomes for all experiments. The other is that the procedure to

come up with the results did not change throughout the process for all subjects. This is because

the research followed the chosen method throughout and the used same selection criteria for all

subjects.

Article level of evidence

According to the information given by Ingham-Broomfield (2016), this type of research

evidence published lies under level 1 of evidence-based practice. The first reason is that it is

based around systematic review and strict meta-analysis constraints. These enable them to

review the articles from the selected databases without skipping any important detail that can

affect the results of their reporting. The other reason is that it is created from random controlled

trials that are all analyzed using similar criteria to come up with the results. Next is that the

selected trials produced similar results which was that plant food lowers diabetes. Lastly, the

procedures involved a control experiment that used the opposite of the intervention making the

trials more reliable and valid.

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References

Ingham-Broomfield, R. (2016). A nurses' guide to the hierarchy of research designs and

evidence. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, The, 33(3), 38-43.

Lee, K. W., Loh, H. C., Ching, S. M., Devaraj, N. K., & Hoo, F. K. (2020). Effects of

vegetarian diets on blood pressure lowering: a systematic review with meta-analysis

and trial sequential analysis. Nutrients, 12(6), 1604.

National Library of Medicine (NLM). (2021). About PMC. National Center for Biotechnology

Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/about/intro/