The DASH diet was shown to lower blood pressure decades ago, yet few people follow it. Here’s how to give it a try.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/28/well/eat/what-is-dash-diet.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ok4.ul6l.zoneyaM23VHA&smid=url-share
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Here is the Google AI summary of the DASH diet. Sounds pretty good (and logical and doable) to me!
The DASH diet, or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, is a diet that can help manage blood pressure and may offer other health benefits. It’s based on eating more foods that are rich in nutrients like potassium, magnesium, and calcium, and eating fewer foods that are high in saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol.
The DASH diet includes:
- Foods to eat
Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat or fat-free dairy, lean protein like fish and poultry, nuts, seeds, and legumes
- Foods to avoid
Red meat, sugar-sweetened beverages, and foods high in saturated fat, cholesterol, and trans fats
- Drinks
Water, seltzer, unsweetened coffee and tea, low-fat milk, unsweetened plant-based milks, no-sodium vegetable juices, and natural fruit juices
- Exercise
At least 30 minutes of exercise a day, most days of the week, totaling at least 2 hours and 30 minutes per week
A web search for “DASH diet” will give plenty of links to descriptions of it that are not AI generated or behind a paywall or require one of someone’s limited number of gift links.
But it is not a surprise that it includes eating vegetables and avoiding or limiting sweets.
DASH promotes consuming healthy foods, which is good. I consider it a guide to eating properly, but it’s important to focus on specific properties of the foods we choose to eat. For example, as we age, we need to pay attention to consuming adequate protein to maintain muscle. It’s all a balancing act!
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The DASH diet limits sodium to less than than the RDA. Sodium is an essential mineral. Limiting sodium can cause a variety of negative health effects, even though it does typically lower blood pressure. These negative health effects can be magnified by other components of the DASH diet, particularly the ones that emphasize consuming large amounts other minerals that need to be in balance with sodium. Of course most Americans have the opposite problem, with sodium consumption that is several times higher than RDA, due to high sodium in many processed foods.
In my opinion, many general aspects of the DASH diet are good to incorporate in to a typical healthy diet such as eating fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean meats; and avoiding processed foods. However, I’d be wary of limiting any essential mineral with no recommended minimum, particularly if you do not have the medical condition for which the diet was intended (DASH is an acronym for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension).
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My mom was told to limit sodium due to heart issues, but she went overboard and got really out of whack. Low sodium levels made her act very oddly.
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