Hypertension Diet Plan

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, often has no symptoms, but it still can do its fair share of damage. High blood pressure is a contributing factor in heart attacks, strokes and heart disease. While medication may be required to bring high blood pressure down quickly, maintenance of blood pressure can be controlled almost entirely by diet. Diet is such an integral part of blood pressure control that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has developed a diet plan for lowering blood pressure. The plan is known as DASH, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.

Why DASH?

Studies of the DASH eating plan, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, took place at four medical centers across the United States: Duke's Hypertension Center and Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Johns Hopkins, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital. These studies found that the DASH program helped blood pressure drop dramatically within two weeks.

Eating Plan

The DASH diet plan includes foods that are low in saturated fat, total fat and cholesterol. The diet is based on fresh fruits, vegetables and low-fat milk, as well as whole grains, fish, poultry and nuts. DASH also limits some of the biggest heart offenders, including salt, red meat and sugar.

Salt intake should be limited to 2,400 mg each day for normal heart health; for people who have problems with hypertension, though, salt intake should not exceed 1,500 mg per day. Reducing salt in the diet requires cutting out many pre-packaged foods. Because salt is used as a preservative, there is usually a substantial amount of salt in packaged food items. The amount of salt in just one pre-packaged item actually can exceed the recommended daily intake.

The meal plan for the DASH diet consists of the right amount of food from each food group. Based on a 2,000-calorie per day diet, the amounts of each food group needed each day are six to eight servings of grains (one ounce of dry cereal or a half cup of pasta is one serving), four to five servings of vegetables (one cup of raw lettuce or half a cup of vegetable juice), four to five fruits (one medium fruit or one-fourth cup of dried fruit), two to three fat-free or low-fat milk products (a cup of yogurt or an ounce and a half of cheese), six servings or fewer of meat, poultry, fish or eggs, and two to three fats or oils (a teaspoon of margarine or olive oil). In addition, these amounts are recommended per week: four to five servings of nuts and legumes (two tablespoons of peanut butter or a half cup of lentils is one serving) and five or fewer servings of sweets.