DASH

What it is

DASH — Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension — is a pattern designed and tested to lower blood pressure: plenty of vegetables and fruit, low-fat dairy, whole grains, poultry, fish, nuts and legumes; less red meat, sweets and sugary drinks; and, in its sodium-restricted form, markedly less salt. It is defined by food groups and by sodium, not by macronutrients, which is why the fields above that ask for grams are honestly empty. In practice it overlaps heavily with the Mediterranean pattern; the differences are more dairy, less olive oil, and the explicit salt limit.

How it works in practice

Vegetables and fruit at every meal, dairy without much fat, whole grains instead of white, salt replaced by acid and herbs in cooking, and the processed foods that carry most of a day's sodium — bread, cheese, cured meat, pickles, sauces — reduced. Weight loss comes from the energy deficit this produces, when it produces one: the pattern is lower in energy density than an average diet, but nothing in it prevents eating at maintenance.

What the evidence shows

A systematic review and meta-analysis of thirteen randomised trials, lasting eight to twenty-four weeks, found DASH produced about 1.4 kilograms more weight loss than control diets, with a larger effect when energy was deliberately restricted. That is a small, short-term effect, and the review says so: DASH was created for blood pressure, where its evidence is strong, and weight is a by-product. No twelve-month weight figure exists in the registry.

Who it tends to suit

People whose reason to change is blood pressure as much as weight; families, since it excludes nothing; people who like dairy and fruit and are willing to relearn cooking with less salt.

How it most often fails

On salt, quietly: the pattern's defining constraint lives in bread, cheese and restaurant food, and a "DASH" diet that keeps those is a Mediterranean-style diet without the olive oil. And on the scale, when the healthy foods are eaten at maintenance — nothing in the pattern creates a deficit by itself.

What to watch

Sodium, obviously; protein, which can fall short if dairy and legumes are not deliberate; and total energy, since fruit, nuts and dairy are all easy to over-eat.

In the app

DASH is not a policy code in the app. Its foods sit close to the balanced policy the app can verify; the salt limit is not something the planner checks, so a DASH preference is expressed through the foods you list as preferred and avoided.