Nina Teicholz does a great job recently discussing the lack of scientific evidence behind the DASH diet. Read about it here:
Her conclusions:
"DASH has never been shown to be effective for preventing any nutrition-related chronic disease:
- DASH has never been shown to help people lose weight or prevent diabetes
- DASH has, at best, mixed results for heart-disease risk factors. While it sometimes lowers LDL-C, (a possible, though unreliable sign of improving CVD risk) it invariably also lowers HDL-C and fails to lower (or raises) triglycerides (both reliable signs of increasing CVD risk).
- Only 1 DASH trial has lasted longer than 8 weeks (and that trial was only 4 months)."