The DASH Diet Action Plan

The DASH diet is a lifestyle approach to healthy eating that will help you treat or prevent high blood pressure. It's recommended by physicians if you have hypertension or a family history of the disease. The diet focuses on nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables, while controlling the amount of salt you consume.

History

In the 1970s, researchers at the Harvard Medical School found that blood pressure was lower in vegetarians who eat a lot of plant foods rich in potassium, magnesium and fiber. They developed a study, coordinated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and conducted in the 1990s at five different medical centers across the United States, which proved that a low-sodium, high-plant diet could help control blood pressure. The DASH diet came from the results of that study.

Identification

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and includes the "standard" DASH diet, where you can consume up to 2,300 mg of sodium per day, and the lower-sodium DASH diet, with a cap of 1,500 mg of sodium daily. Those levels are in contrast to a more typical diet that can include 3,500 mg of sodium a day or more. According to the NIH, the diet focuses on increasing your intake of foods rich in nutrients that help lower blood pressure, mainly protein, fiber and minerals like potassium, calcium and magnesium.

Significance

High blood pressure affects one in three adults in the United States, around 65 million people, according to the NIH. In addition, 28 percent of Americans aged 18 or older, or 59 million people, have prehypertension, a condition that increases the chance of heart disease and stroke.

Effects

The DASH diet has been shown to reduce blood pressure by a few points in just two weeks, and over time could decrease it by 8 to 14 points. Because the diet concentrates on healthy foods, it may also offer protection against osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The Diet

The DASH diet is easy to follow because it doesn't involve any specialty or exotic foods that you can't purchase at a local supermarket. Daily goals for nutrition with the DASH diet call for 27 percent of your calories to come from fat--only 6 percent saturated fat--18 percent from protein and 55 percent from carbohydrates. In addition to the maximum of 2,300 mg of sodium per day, you should also consume 1,250 mg of calcium, 500 mg of magnesium, 4,700 mg of potassium and 30 g of fiber daily.

Reduce Sodium

To help reduce salt in your diet, look for products that contain no salt at all or are low-sodium or reduced-sodium. Use primarily fresh fish, meats and poultry. Canned, smoked or processed meat varieties contain not only high levels of salt but other unhealthy ingredients like nitrites. Try to cook and consume foods as close to their natural state as possible, avoiding highly processed packaged foods that often have high levels of added sodium. Instead, flavor foods with herbs, spices, lemon, lime, vinegar or salt-free seasoning blends.