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DASH Diet Lowers Heart Attack Risk

Posted on: Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 09:00 CDT

A 24-year U.S. study of 88,517 women found lowered risk of heart disease and stroke for those who ate little meat, low-fat dairy products and lots of produce.

The Nurses' Health Study was conducted by Teresa T. Fung and colleagues at Simmons College in Boston.

Participants in the study -- between 1980 and 2004 -- were female nurses who did not have cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The age range at the start of the study was 34 to 59.

Researchers wanted to see how closely the women followed Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, known as the DASH diet.

Seven times over the years, the participants reported the types of foods they ate regularly over the previous year.

Researchers then calculated a DASH score that increased when the women ate more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes and stayed close to the recommended amounts of low-fat dairy. Scores decreased with increased consumption of red and processed meats, sweetened beverages and sodium.

The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found the one-fifth of women who had diets that were most similar to the DASH diet were 24 percent less likely to develop fatal or non-fatal coronary heart disease and 18 percent less likely to have a stroke than the one-fifth of women with the lowest DASH scores.

Source: United Press International

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