One out of every four Americans has high blood pressure, according to the American Diabetes Association. This means that many Americans have hearts pumping way too hard and arteries clogged by LDL cholesterol and fatty acids. It’s natural to panic when people first learn they may be more at risk for congestive heart failure, a stroke, kidney disease, diabetes or atherosclerosis. The good news is that reversing heart health is easier than we may think.

Over at the Harvard School of Medicine, researchers have developed a dietary program known as “DASH,” an acronym for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. The DASH diet includes: 8 grain servings, 5 vegetable servings, 2-3 low fat dairy servings, 1-2 servings of meat, poultry or fish and 5 servings per week of nuts, seeds or beans.

Saturated fats and sugars should be limited and serving sizes generally run ½ cup cooked, 1 cup raw or 2 tbsp nuts and seeds. Exercise is crucial! Within just two weeks, the diet already began having an effect on Dr. Gabe Mirkin’s patients, with 70% returning to normal blood pressure levels. He says that increasing minerals like magnesium, calcium and potassium had a strong impact, as did limiting fat and sodium. The diet triggers a diuretic effect, much like certain medications that work to “flush the system.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Health & Beauty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.