DASH Diet May Prevent Heart Attacks.

• Position: Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension - Brief Article

The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet that includes three servings of low-fat dairy foods and eight to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables, which was shown to help lower blood pressure, may have another lifesaving benefit--protection against heart disease, the country's leading cause of death. According to David A. McCarron, professor of medicine, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, a study placed 118 participants on one of three randomly assigned diets used in the original DASH hypertension trial: a control regimen (the typical American diet), one that emphasized fruits and vegetables, and the DASH combination diet. After following the assigned regimens for eight weeks, those on the DASH combination diet saw the greatest reduction in artery-damaging homocysteine compared to the other subjects.

Homocysteine is an amino acid that is a by-product of protein metabolism. High levels of it have been associated with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Several studies have pointed to homocysteine as an independent risk factor for heart disease along with elevated cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and physical inactivity.

"This study stresses the importance of choosing even more low-fat dairy foods, fruits, and vegetables in your diet," McCarron points out. "If people make the choice to switch to this kind of diet, they could lower their risk of heart disease by seven to nine percent, and that's in addition to the benefits of reduced blood pressure, which the DASH authors have previously estimated lower heart attack risk by 15% and stroke risk by 27%."

The study's authors suggest that the increased folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 in the DASH diet may play a role because they work together to reduce the amount of homocysteine in the blood. They note that, while B6 and B12 likely contribute to the DASH diet's homocysteine-lowering effect, it was only...