Nutritional intervention, through the DASH diet, to improve nutritional status and blood pressure figures

Introduction: Hypertension is a chronic disease that increases the risk of systemic complications, especially in the cardiovascular system. Sometimes the disease is asymptomatic, delaying its diagnosis, control and increasing the risk of complications. Maintaining healthy habits and lifestyles are the first prevention and treatment strategy for this condition.Objective: Apply a nutritional intervention, based on the implementation of the DASH diet, to improve nutritional status and control blood pressure figures.Methods: Applied research, with a quasi-experimental, descriptive and correlational design consisting of the application of a nutritional intervention based on the DASH diet. The universe was made up of 54 people who attended a nutrition consultation in order to reduce their body weight, the sample was made up of 48 patients. The McNemar test and ANOVA were applied to verify changes in the variables blood pressure, body mass index and waist circumference.Results: At the beginning of the intervention, patients with high normal blood pressure figures (50.00%), obesity (58.33%) and very high risk according to waist circumference (66.67%) predominated. After the intervention, patients with optimal blood pressure (66.67%), overweight (58.33%) and very high risk (50.00%) predominated.Conclusion: The applied nutritional intervention, based on the implementation of the DASH diet, contributed to the improvement of the nutritional status and the control of the BP figures.