Dash Diet Information

High blood pressure affects more than a billion people worldwide — and that number is rising.

In fact, the number of people with high blood pressure has doubled in the last 40 years — a serious health concern, as high blood pressure is linked to a higher risk of conditions such as heart disease, kidney failure and stroke (1Trusted Source, 2Trusted Source).

As diet is thought to play a major role in the development of high blood pressure, scientists and policymakers have engineered specific dietary strategies to help reduce it (3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source).

This article examines the DASH diet, which was designed to combat high blood pressure and reduce people’s risk of heart disease.

What Is the DASH Diet?

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH, is a diet recommended for people who want to prevent or treat hypertension — also known as high blood pressure — and reduce their risk of heart disease.

The DASH diet focuses on fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean meats.

The diet was created after researchers noticed that high blood pressure was much less common in people who followed a plant-based diet, such as vegans and vegetarians (5Trusted Source, 6Trusted Source).

That’s why the DASH diet emphasizes fruits and vegetables while containing some lean protein sources like chicken, fish and beans. The diet is low in red meat, salt, added sugars and fat.

Scientists believe that one of the main reasons people with high blood pressure can benefit from this diet is because it reduces salt intake.

The regular DASH diet program encourages no more than 1 teaspoon (2,300 mg) of sodium per day, which is in line with most national guidelines.

The lower-salt version recommends no more than 3/4 teaspoon (1,500 mg) of sodium per day.

Summary

The DASH diet was designed to reduce high blood pressure. While rich in fruits, vegetables and lean proteins, it restricts red meat, salt, added sugars and fat.

Potential Benefits

Beyond reducing blood pressure, the DASH diet offers a number of potential benefits, including weight loss and reduced cancer risk.

However, you shouldn’t expect DASH to help you shed weight on its own — as it was designed fundamentally to lower blood pressure. Weight loss may simply be an added perk.

The diet impacts your body in several ways.

Lowers Blood Pressure

Blood pressure is a measure of the force put on your blood vessels and organs as your blood passes through them. It’s counted in two numbers:

Systolic pressure: The pressure in your blood vessels when your heart beats.
Diastolic pressure: The pressure in your blood vessels between heartbeats, when your heart is at rest.

Normal blood pressure for adults is a systolic pressure below 120 mmHg and a diastolic pressure below 80 mmHg. This is normally written with the systolic blood pressure above the diastolic pressure, like this: 120/80.

People with a blood pressure reading of 140/90 are considered to have high blood pressure.

Interestingly, the DASH diet demonstrably lowers blood pressure in both healthy people and those with high blood pressure.

In studies, people on the DASH diet still experienced lower blood pressure even if they didn’t lose weight or restrict salt intake (7Trusted Source, 8Trusted Source).

However, when sodium intake was restricted, the DASH diet lowered blood pressure even further. In fact, the greatest reductions in blood pressure were seen in people with the lowest salt consumption (9Trusted Source).

These low-salt DASH diet results were most impressive in people who already had high blood pressure, reducing systolic blood pressure by an average of 12 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 5 mmHg (5Trusted Source).

In people with normal blood pressure, it reduced systolic blood pressure by 4 mmHg and diastolic by 2 mmHg (5Trusted Source).

This is in line with other studies which reveal that restricting salt intake can reduce blood pressure — especially in those who have high blood pressure (10Trusted Source).

Keep in mind that a decrease in blood pressure does not always translate to a decreased risk of heart disease (11Trusted Source).

May Aid Weight Loss

You will likely experience lower blood pressure on the DASH diet whether or not you lose weight.

However, if you already have high blood pressure, chances are you have been advised to lose weight.

This is because the more you weigh, the higher your blood pressure is likely to be (12Trusted Source, 13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source).

Additionally, losing weight has been shown to lower blood pressure (15Trusted Source, 16Trusted Source).

Some studies suggest that people can lose weight on the DASH diet (17Trusted Source, 18Trusted Source, 19Trusted Source).

However, those who have lost weight on the DASH diet have been in a controlled calorie deficit — meaning they were told to eat fewer calories than they were expending.

Given that the DASH diet cuts out a lot of high-fat, sugary foods, people may find that they automatically reduce their calorie intake and lose weight. Other people may have to consciously restrict their intake (20Trusted Source).

Either way, if you want to lose weight on the DASH diet, you’ll still need to go on a calorie-reduced diet.

Other Potential Health Benefits

DASH may also affect other areas of health. The diet:

Decreases cancer risk: A recent review indicated that people following the DASH diet had a lower risk of some cancers, including colorectal and breast cancer (21Trusted Source).
Lowers metabolic syndrome risk: Some studies note that the DASH diet reduces your risk of metabolic syndrome by up to 81% (22Trusted Source, 23Trusted Source).
Lowers diabetes risk: The diet has been linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Some studies demonstrate that it can improve insulin resistance as well (24Trusted Source, 25Trusted Source).
Decreases heart disease risk: In one recent review in women, following a DASH-like diet was associated with a 20% lower risk of heart disease and a 29% lower risk of stroke (26Trusted Source).

Many of these protective effects are attributed to the diet’s high fruit and vegetable content. In general, eating more fruits and vegetables can help reduce risk of disease (27Trusted Source, 28Trusted Source, 29Trusted Source, 30Trusted Source).

Summary

DASH lowers blood pressure — particularly if you have elevated levels — and may aid weight loss. It could reduce your risk of diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome and some cancers.

Does It Work for Everyone?

While studies on the DASH diet determined that the greatest reductions in blood pressure occurred in those with the lowest salt intake, the benefits of salt restriction on health and lifespan are not clear-cut.

For people with high blood pressure, reducing salt intake significantly affects blood pressure. However, in people with normal blood pressure, the effects of reducing salt intake are much smaller (6Trusted Source, 10Trusted Source).

The theory that some people are salt sensitive — meaning that salt exerts a greater influence on their blood pressure — could partly explain this (31Trusted Source).

Summary

If your salt intake is high, lowering it can offer major health benefits. Comprehensive salt restriction, as advised on the DASH diet, may only be beneficial for people who are salt sensitive or have high blood pressure.

Restricting Salt Too Much Is Not Good for You

Eating too little salt has been linked to health problems, such as an increased risk of heart disease, insulin resistance and fluid retention.

The low-salt version of the DASH diet recommends that people eat no more than 3/4 teaspoon (1,500 mg) of sodium per day.

However, it’s unclear whether there are any benefits to reducing salt intake this low — even in people with high blood pressure (32Trusted Source).

In fact, a recent review found no link between salt intake and risk of death from heart disease, despite the fact that lowering salt intake caused a modest reduction in blood pressure (11Trusted Source).

However, because most people eat too much salt, lowering your salt intake from very high amounts of 2–2.5 teaspoons (10–12 grams) a day to 1–1.25 teaspoons (5–6 grams) a day may be beneficial (6Trusted Source).

This target can be achieved easily by reducing the amount of highly processed food in your diet and eating mostly whole foods.

Summary

Although reducing salt intake from processed foods is beneficial for most people, eating too little salt may also be harmful.

What to Eat on the Diet

The DASH diet doesn’t list specific foods to eat.

Instead, it recommends specific servings of different food groups.

The number of servings you can eat depends on how many calories you consume. Below is an example of food portions based on a 2,000-calorie diet.

Whole Grains: 6–8 Servings per Day

Examples of whole grains include whole-wheat or whole-grain breads, whole-grain breakfast cereals, brown rice, bulgur, quinoa and oatmeal.