Healthier Diets Cut ASCVD Risk by 10 Percent in Eight Weeks

TUESDAY, Dec. 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) and fruit and vegetable (F/V) diets reduce 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk scores by about 10 percent over eight weeks, according to a study published in the Jan. 15 issue of in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Sun Young Jeong, M.D., from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues used data from the original DASH trial to determine the effects of adopting the DASH diet on 10-year ASCVD risk versus adopting a control or an F/V diet. The analysis included 459 adults (aged 22 to 75 years).

The researchers found that DASH and F/V diets changed 10-year ASCVD risk by −10.3 and −9.9 percent, respectively, with no differences observed between these groups. These effects were more pronounced in women and Black adults. The difference in systolic blood pressure alone was responsible for ASCVD reductions of −14.6 percent with the DASH diet and −7.9 percent with the F/V diet, a net relative advantage of 7.2 percent greater relative reduction from DASH compared with F/V. However, this was offset by the positive effects on high-density lipoprotein of the DASH diet, which increased 10-year ASCVD by 8.8 percent versus the more neutral effect of the F/V diet.

“These findings are informative for counseling patients on both choices of diet and expectations for 10-year ASCVD risk reduction,” the authors write.

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