The heart-healthy diet hardly anyone is talking about

The DASH diet was shown to lower blood pressure decades ago, yet few people follow it. Here’s how to give it a try. When Dr Deepak Gupta discussed blood pressure management strategies with his patients, they often jumped to say they knew they should cut down on salt, he said.

But that’s not the only dietary change that can lower blood pressure, said Gupta, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre. More than two decades ago, researchers showed the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (or DASH) diet, which is rich in fruits , vegetables and whole grains , could dramatically reduce high blood pressure. This was true even when clinical trial participants consumed high levels of sodium.

Nearly half of adults in the United States have high blood pressure, so a lot of people would benefit from adopting the DASH diet, said Dr Stephen Juraschek, an internal medicine physician and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School..