The beneficial effects of a vegetarian diet on blood pressure (BP) control have been reported in previous systematic reviews; however, so far, their relative effectiveness is not well established. Here, we performed a systematic review together with trial sequential analysis to determine the effect of a vegetarian diet on the reduction of blood pressure. We searched the randomized controlled trial (RCT) through Medline, PubMed and Cochrane Central Register. Fifteen eligible RCTs with 856 subjects were entered into the analysis. The pooled results demonstrated that vegetarian diet consumption significantly lowered the systolic blood pressure (weighted mean difference (WMD), −2.66 mmHg (95% confidence interval (CI) = −3.76, −1.55, p < 0.001) and diastolic BP was WMD, −1.69 95% CI = −2.97, −0.41, p < 0.001) as compared to an omnivorous diet. In subgroup analysis, a vegan diet demonstrated a greater reduction in systolic BP (WMD, −3.12 mmHg; 95% CI = −4.54, −1.70, p < 0.001) as compared with a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet (WMD, −1.75 mmHg, 95% CI −5.38, 1.88, p = 0.05). The vegan diet has showed a similar trend in terms of diastolic blood pressure reduction (WMD, −1.92 mmHg (95% CI = −3.18, −0.66, p < 0.001) but those with a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet showed no changes in diastolic BP reduction (WMD, 0.00, 95% CI = 0.00, 0.00), p = 0.432). In conclusion, vegetarian diets are associated with significant reductions in BP compared with omnivorous diets, suggesting that they may play a key role in the primary prevention and overall management of hypertension.

BACKGROUND: A diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) negatively influences maternal mental health. There is a lack of systematic review and meta-analysis on prevalence of anxiety among GDM women. AIM: To pool data from existing literature to determine the pooled estimates for the prevalence of anxiety among women diagnosed with GDM. METHODS: We searched multiple databases including MEDLINE, Cinahl, PubMed and Scopus to identify studies published up to 31 October 2019 with data on the prevalence of anxiety among women diagnosed with GDM. Data were extracted from published reports. Estimates were pooled using random-effects meta-analyses. RESULTS: We reviewed 19 abstracts, retrieved 10 articles and included three studies incorporating 12744 GDM women from three countries. The pooled prevalence of anxiety was 29.5% (95%CI: 6.9, 52.0) among GDM women. CONCLUSION: Prevalence of anxiety among GDM women was high. We suggest that epidemiological studies on anxiety should be conducted urgently as it merits clinical attention. In addition, it is important to identify factors associated with anxiety among women diagnosed with GDM.