The DASH diet lowers blood pressure and improves heart health, but recent research shows high-fat versions may work better than traditional low-fat ones. The speaker challenges old assumptions about which lipid markers actually predict heart attack risk.
DASH D A S H stands for Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, I think is what the A is Dietary approach or approaches to stop hypertension. And they identified, you know, a diet that was capable of slightly reducing blood pressure. And that was relevant because if you reduce blood pressure, you can reduce the risk of heart attack and heart disease in general. The DASH diet is the most beloved diet when it comes to heart health. Every cardiologist, every dietitian, if you have any hint of a heart disease problem, DASH diet's gonna be the first thing they say. I just wanna highlight it's a little bit of a tangent, but it's just such a kind of funny study that I can't help but show it. The diet. The DASH diet is famous, then all you'll ever hear about is that it is low fat and low salt. That's what people wanna brag about and use it as evidence. The problem is it is multifact faceted. There are multiple aspects and dietary changes that go into the DASH diet, including reduced consumption of refined sugars and starches. So it's basically something like. In fact, it sounds like a somewhat miserable diet, which is probably why so few people adhere to it. It's very low in salt, it's very low in refined starches and sugars, and it's very low fat. Well, I can get behind one of those things. I very much am an advocate of reducing dietary starches and sugars or refined starches and sugars, but that was all a part of it. There's many factors, but the only thing you ever about is the low salt and the low fat. Well, what if it's the low carb that's actually benefiting the people here? As modest as the benefit is. Now with this study in mind, the DASH diet. So Chew et al, C H I U in 2016 published a paper that actually looked at it compared the typical DASH diet, which is low fat, low refined carb, low salt, with a really high fat version, so very high saturated fat that people were encouraged to eat full fat dairy liberally. So they were eating substantially multiple times more saturated fat than the other group. And not only did they enjoy the same reduction in blood pressure that the standard DASH diet did. And remember, that's the main reason people do it at all. So not only did they enjoy the exact same reduction in blood pressure, but they actually had better lipid improvements. Their triglycerides went down more and their VLDL went down more while the LDL stayed the same across the two groups. Groups that is really impactful by lowering triglycerides and lowering vldl. Those variables are much more predictive of heart attack risk than LDL is. In fact, a paper was just published in the past few weeks at the time of me recording this in May 2024 that looked at varying blood lipid categories in people with higher or lower risk of having a heart attack and the people with the lower VLDL but the higher LDL had the lowest risk of having a heart attack. I'll say that again, people with the higher LDL but the lower VLDL had the lowest risk of a heart attack. That's exactly the lipid profile we're seeing changed in the high fat version of the famous and much beloved, I would say irrationally so Dash Diet oh, some. Not every dietitian. Thank you Evolved dietitian. Thank you. Yes, there are some that are that have woken up and seen the light. Yes, thanks again. Not every dietitian. I love that you guys are correcting me. Not every dietitian, but too many. We can all agree that it's too many, and it's certainly those that are the most dogmatic dietitians cling to these outdated ideas. But not all are clinging and many are challenging and learning more. And I appreciate it.
