A bit of DASH to slash heart attack and stroke risk
If you're looking to reduce your risk of stroke and heart attack—and who isn't— you might want to try a diet initially designed to lower blood pressure.
A huge study that involved 88,000 women for a period of 25 years found that for those who ate meals that closely resembled the DASH diet—recommended to reduce high blood pressure—had a 24 percent lower incidence of heart attacks and an 18 percent lower incidence of strokes.
The DASH plan includes fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Also, it pushes for more plant-based proteins over meat selections. While this isn't a bad idea, there's nothing wrong with including grass-fed cattle or free-range poultry and all the fish you want (see www.mbayaq.org for the Seafood Watch Program's safe- fish list).
Also, I want to alert you to a common problem I encounter when people go on a healthy diet. Over and over again I see people working hard on cutting out the processed junk and getting enough fruits and vegetables. The problem they run into are cravings. This usually goes along with the belief that a healthy diet should somehow be a deprivation diet. Nothing could be further from the truth, and any diet or food plan that causes hunger and cravings will ultimately fail.
Cravings usually result in bingeing on "low fat" processed carbs. Avoid this harmful practice and satisfy your body's needs by making sure you get enough healthy fat. Those cravings are a message to your brain from your body that it's not getting what it needs to run itself—and more often than not, it means a lack of adequate healthy, natural fat found in fish, nuts, nut butters and olive oil. Even small to moderate amounts of organic dairy in the form of yogurt, cheese and butter are okay. If you get cravings on your "healthy" diet, consider experimenting with a little more of these healthy fats. Fat is not the enemy (except for trans fats in the form of hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats found in margarines, packaged baked goods and a wide variety of processed, frozen-food products.)
And while you may not currently be dealing with high blood pressure, but you can start eating better today. You know what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
