Trying to manage my BP without increasing medication as well as avoiding falling over the threshold into being classed as pre-diabetic. Have been following principles of the Blood Sugar Diet for several years now. Saw the reference to the Dash Diet on the National Aging website and looked that up. The DASH diet specifically recommends low or nil fat dairy products while The Blood Sugar Diet recommends not choosing low fat options citing the additives used etc to compensate for the lack of fat. I have studied the science behind the Blood Sugar Diet and it appears to me convincing. Research into the Dash Diet appears much smaller scale. Would welcome more info, views and experience on this apparent conflict in guidance please.

Hi Pam.
I have no experience with high blood pressure only high blood sugar.
Low carb definitely helps reduce blood sugar. I started eating low carb nearly seven years ago now and my diabetes had been in remission without medication for over 6 years.
I have no idea what the Dash diet is but any ‘low calorie’ foods usually have additives to make them palatable. Full fat, 5% , Greek yogurt with your choice of berries is the best way forward.
After a lifetime of living in a “low fat” world it’s really difficult to adopt good ‘fats’ again. I suggest you read the list of ingredients on the low fat foods because there’s a high chance you won’t recognise quite a few of them! Stay with ‘whole’ food without additives and you can’t go far wrong.
PS fats keep you full!
Best of luck.

Hi Pam, I can only reiterate what Verano has said although I do have some experience with high blood pressure as well as diabetes. Eating the BSD way can help reduce blood pressure and I was on 2 medications and now only on one. My doctor wont let me stop completely as he says it might be the tablet keeping it low but it is down to a regular level around 95/60. Exercise also helps.

As for the DASH diet, it is American and they have not caught on to the good fats in diets, second it has not had as much research and in fact sounds like any other weight loss plan like Slimming World or Weight Watchers. I decided to look into it so I could be level in my response and after going through about 20 mins of questions I got to the part where they would give me my plan and then – yes you guessed it – they wanted paying. Stuff that for a bunch of red peppers when we can get everything we need to know here for free or by buying just one or two books (Dr Mosley). As Verano said when you buy something low fat it will contain something else and even low fat margarine contains extra sugars and rice flour as do yoghurts and dont even ask about low fat fruit flavoured yoghurts. The BDS was first trialled by Prof Roy Taylor or the University of Newcastle and after around 10 years of research this is now recommended by the British Diabetic Association and I have heard that some hospitals and doctors now how permission to recommended it after years of them telling us converts that we were mad to go so low cal and high fat.

As someone who is trying to avoid slipping into diabetes I can highly recommend this diet for you. I am diabetic and have been for some years. Unlike Verano I have not been able to completely ditch the diabetic label but I do keep my numbers excellent and for 7 years have avoided any other medical related complications.

As a fellow Yorkshire lass, keep your money in your pocket and stick with us on this site. Yell out for any help. Join our weekly thread for easier access to particular questions, we are currently called Advancing Through April, 25th April – name changes every month but the concept stays the same.

Good luck.

For me there are two main reasons for going low carb rather than low fat.

One is that I prefer to eat / drink real food in a fairly natural state, not something that has part of the original ingredients removed and lots of artificial stuff added. Whenever I read the labels I never think, ‘Oh yummy, it’s got stabilisers, sweeteners, fillers, flavour enhancers and a whole bunch of stuff I can’t pronounce.’ It’s not that I think those things are necessarily harmful, I’d just rather eat actual butter or whatever.

The second is that I can stick to the low carb diet fairly well. The low fat ones worked for a while, but I always felt I was depriving myself, so gave up and put all the weight back on.