• Anaïs Rico-Campà, Carmen Sayón-Orea, Miguel Á Martínez-González, Miguel Ruiz-Canela, Liz Ruiz-Estigarribia, Carmen de la Fuente-Arrillaga, Estefanía Toledo, and Maira Bes-Rastrollo.
• Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain; Biomedical Research Centre Network on Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn) Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition, Institute of Health Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
• Med Clin (Barc). 2020 Jul 10; 155 (1): 9-17.

Background And ObjectivesCured ham is one of the most characteristic foods in the Spanish diet. Because it is a red processed meat and due to its nutritional composition, including high sodium content, a potential association between cured ham consumption and a higher risk of hypertension could be expected. However, epidemiological studies evaluating this association are scarce. We prospectively assessed the association between cured ham consumption and the incidence of hypertension.MethodsThe "Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra" (SUN) study is a cohort of Spanish middle-aged adult university graduates (average age: 38 (SD: 12) years, 60% women). We included 13,900 participants of the SUN cohort free of hypertension at baseline. One serving of cured ham is 50g. They were classified into 4 categories of cured ham consumption: <1; 1; 2-4 and ≥5servs/week. Multivariable-adjusted Cox regression models were fitted to assess the association between cured ham consumption and subsequent hypertension risk using the category of lowest consumption as the reference.ResultsAfter a median follow-up of 10.9 years, 1465 incident self-reported cases of hypertension were identified. After adjusting for potential confounders, including dietary confounders, a high consumption of cured ham (≥5servs/week vs. <1serv/week) was not significantly associated with hypertension risk in this prospective cohort (HR=0.88, 95% CI: 0.70-1.10, p linear trend=0.40).ConclusionsOur results showed that cured ham consumption was not associated with a significantly higher or lower risk of hypertension in a prospective cohort of Spanish middle-aged adult university graduates. Further longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to disentangle the association between cured ham consumption and the risk of hypertension.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

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