The 'best diet' to lose weight, lower blood pressure and reduce diabetes risk

The diet is said to be an 'essential' in lowering many health risks

Experts are recommending a healthy diet that still includes meat that could lower blood pressure. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a serious condition that should be addressed promptly with your GP.

Ignoring the issue can lead to severe complications such as heart attacks or strokes, warns the NHS. However, if you do have hypertension, lifestyle modifications and blood pressure medications can help you to reduce your blood pressure - and there's one diet that's recommended to do just that.

A recent study published in the National Library of Medicine has revealed that over the past 50 years in the US alone, there has been an increase in diseases including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and coronary artery disease. Fortunately, the risk factors associated with hypertension "can be controlled to an extent" by following the DASH diet, according to the study.

"The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet originated in the 1990s", they say and in 1992, the National Institute of Health (NIH) started funding several research projects to see if specific dietary interventions were useful in treating hypertension. Subjects taking part in the study were told to follow the dietary interventions and not include any other lifestyle modifications to avoid influencing factors.

According to research, "they found that only the dietary intervention alone could decrease systolic blood pressure by about 6 to 11 mm Hg. This effect was seen both in hypertensive and normotensive people. Based on these results, in some instances, DASH has been advocated as the first-line pharmacologic therapy along with lifestyle modification."

The diet calls for people to consume more vegetables and fruits, lean meat and dairy products, as well as cutting down on salt. The study writes: "The DASH diet has many similarities to other dietary patterns promoted for cardiovascular health. The DASH diet is a culmination of the ancient and modern world. Scientists have derived it based on certain ancient nutritional principles, and it has been tailored to target some of the leading killers of contemporary society."

A typical serving guide for a patient following the DASH diet is as follows:

1. Vegetables: about 5 servings per day
2. Fruits: about 5 meals per day
3. Carbohydrates: about 7 servings per day
4. Low-fat dairy products: about 2 servings per day
5. Lean meat products: about 2 or fewer servings per day
6. Nuts and seeds: 2 to 3 times per week

The diet has been "well-studied in many clinical trials, most associated with lowering blood pressure. Further, there is evidence to show that the DASH diet also lowers the risk of adverse cardiac events, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and obesity". As well as this, "several studies have shown that the DASH diet helps lower blood glucose levels, triglycerides, LDL-C, and insulin resistance.

"This makes the DASH diet an essential adjunct to pharmacological therapy in metabolic syndromes", they conclude, adding: "The DASH diet has been recommended as the best diet to help people who want to lose weight, maintain a healthy weight, and lower their blood pressure. The key fact is that this diet needs to be promoted to patients.

"The most important feature of the DASH diet is that it requires a lifestyle change and adopting a healthy way of eating. In addition, patients should be urged to stop smoking, abstain from alcohol, and do some physical activity regularly."