The Impacts of Vegetables and Fruits Smoothies on Reducing Risk of Hypertension

Since 2019, the majority of people in Thailand have been at risk of hypertension. This appears to be due to the low daily consumption of vegetables and fruits in Thai people. However, the impact of food processing, such as blending (smoothies), on vegetables and fruits is somewhat obscure. Thus, we do this survey research to investigate whether consuming vegetables and fruit as a fresh and blended form has any impact on reducing the risk of hypertension in Thailand. We conducted a survey research and collected data from 567 participants using an online survey questionnaire through Google Forms. Unfortunately, some participants have to be excluded due to answering errors, so only 418 participants were included in the final analysis. Statistics Products and Service Solutions (SPSS) was used for data analysis, so we can divide the questionnaire into 3 parts that are related to the topic, including general information by using multiple choices, daily vegetable and fruit consumption, and lifestyle behaviors that reduce the risks of hypertension. Descriptive statistics were used to illustrate the mean and standard deviation of daily vegetable and fruit consumption and lifestyle behaviors that reduce the risks of hypertension. From our results, the independent samples t-test revealed a significant difference in the lifestyle that reduces the risk of hypertension between participants who use and do not use pain relievers. One-way ANOVA (F-test) also showed a significant difference in the lifestyle that reduces the risk of hypertension between different age groups. Pearson’s correlation was used to investigate the correlation between hypertension risk and consumption of vegetables and fruits. We discovered that the consumption of vegetables and fruit does have a significant positive correlation to hypertension risk for both eaten fresh and as smoothies. However, the Pearson correlation obtained for smoothie consumption (r = 0.331) is less than that of fresh vegetable and fruit consumption (r = 0.42). Subsequently, we can conclude that fresh vegetable and fruit consumption can reduce the risk of hypertension more than vegetable and fruit smoothie consumption. Nevertheless, it is related to the specific participants who usually consume vegetable and fruit smoothies. Moreover, we believe that the reader will obtain numerous benefits from this research, including ways to reduce the risk of hypertension and alternative ways to consume vegetables and fruits.