Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 11-23-2015

Abstract

The dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) diet has been developed and popularized as a non-pharmaceutical intervention for high blood pressure reduction since 1995. However, to date, a comprehensive description of the biochemical rationale behind the diet’s principal guidelines has yet to be compiled. With rising interest for healthy and reliable life-style modifications to combat cardiovascular disease, this review aims to compile the most recent and relevant studies on this topic and make an informed assessment as to the efficacy of and underlying mechanisms operant in the DASH diet. Specifically, the merits of lowering dietary intake of sodium and saturated fat, as well as increasing the intake of fruits, vegetables, fiber, and dairy, have been shown to attenuate hypertension individually. Upon review of this evidence, we conclude that the combination of dietary patterns proposed in the DASH diet is effective in attenuating high blood pressure. We also suggest that efforts to more widely implement adoption of the DASH diet would be beneficial to public health.

Comments

The copy of record is available from the publisher at http://www.wjgnet.com/2220-3168/pdf/v5/i4/119.pdf. Copyright © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. This is an open-access article which is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

doi: 10.5494/wjh.v5.i4.119

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