Reducing the Risk of Heart Disease with the DASH Diet
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in America. In 2022, over 700,000 people lost their lives to heart disease, accounting for one in every five deaths. While these numbers are concerning, the good news is that heart disease is a chronic condition that can often be prevented or managed through healthy lifestyle choices. This article will explore how you can reduce your risk of heart disease by following the DASH diet.
Understanding Risk Factors for Heart Disease
Several factors influence the risk of heart disease. Some risk factors, like age, family history, race/ethnicity, and gender, cannot be changed. However, other risk factors—such as physical activity, diet, smoking, and alcohol consumption—are within our control. If you have heart disease or are at higher risk due to these factors, the DASH diet is an excellent tool for managing or reducing your risk for heart disease.
What is the DASH Diet?
You might be thinking, "A diet? Aren’t diets bad?" While many fad diets are restrictive and unsustainable, the DASH diet is different—it is a long-term healthy eating plan rather than a diet in the traditional sense.
DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. It focuses on incorporating heart-healthy foods into your meals to help manage or reduce your risk of heart disease.
Key Principles of the DASH Diet
- Increase: Heart-healthy fats, lean proteins, fiber, potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
- Decrease: Saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium.
Making all these changes at once might feel overwhelming, but remember that small, gradual changes can have a significant impact over time. Just as heart disease doesn’t develop overnight, adopting a healthier diet is a journey that requires patience and persistence.
Five Simple Tips for Following the DASH Diet
1. Evaluate Your Current Eating Habits
Before making changes, assess your current eating patterns. Keep a food diary for three days, tracking everything you eat without adjusting your usual habits. Then, compare your choices to the DASH diet recommendations and identify areas for improvement.
2. Make Gradual Changes
Trying to change everything at once can be overwhelming and unsustainable. Instead, set small, achievable goals. For example:
- Jonathon’s Story: Andy, newly diagnosed with heart disease, realized he drank five 20-ounce sodas daily and ate vegetables only at dinner. To cut back on added sugar, he set a goal to reduce his soda intake to two per day over a month, gradually decreasing his consumption each week. Next month, he plans to start working on increasing his vegetable intake.
- Lenora’s Story: Lenora, with a family history of heart disease, wanted to be proactive. She loved cooking with butter but decided to focus first on increasing fiber intake. She consulted a dietitian and learned about fiber-rich foods. She learned that high-fiber foods include whole grains, beans and legumes, vegetables, fruits, and nuts and seeds. She also learned that it is important to increase her fluid intake and her fiber gradually to prevent GI issues. Lenora sets the goal to eat one serving of a high-fiber food each day for one week. Then every two weeks she will add another serving of a high-fiber food each day until she has reached her goal. From there she will work to maintain her daily fiber intake.
3. Vary Your Protein Sources
The DASH diet encourages lean protein choices, as excessive saturated fat intake can increase heart disease risk. Lean protein sources include:
- Animal-based (leaner options): Chicken, turkey, fish, low fat dairy products
- Plant-based: Beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds.
Try swapping ground beef for ground turkey or including plant-based protein meals a few times per week.
4. Choose Healthy Snacks
Snacks are an important part of our diet. Snacks can be a boost in our daily fuel and calories that help us maintain good health and make it from one meal to the next. Unfortunately, when we reach for a snack, we often reach for packaged processed food that is high in calories and low in heart-healthy nutrients. Depending on the type of snack, it could also be high in sodium or added sugar.
To make the shift to following the DASH diet recommendations, we can choose to have
heart-healthy snacks. These snacks could be packed with fiber, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and heart-healthy fats. Here are some examples of heart-healthy snacks:
- Vegetables with hummus (carrots, snap peas, cucumber, bell peppers)
- Cheese sticks with apple slices and whole-grain crackers
- Avocado toast on whole-grain bread
- Low-fat cottage cheese with fruit
- Greek yogurt with granola
For a balanced snack, pair a carbohydrate with a protein to keep you full and energized.
5. Use the % Daily Value on Food Labels
Food labels provide valuable information about nutrient content. The % Daily Value (%DV) column on food labels helps determine whether a food is high or low in specific nutrients:
- Low source: 5% DV or less
- High source: 20% DV or more
When grocery shopping, aim for foods that are high in fiber, potassium, calcium, vitamin D, and iron, while limiting foods high in saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, and added sugars. The next time you are at the grocery store, take the time to read the food labels and use your skill of reading the % daily value column to make healthier food choices.
Summary
By making small, gradual changes in your eating habits, the DASH diet can help you manage or reduce your risk of heart disease. Start with one or two changes and build from there. Remember, healthy eating is a lifelong journey, and every step you take brings you closer to better heart health.
Resources
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
Author
Reviewer
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