Adherence to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension eating plan in candidates awaiting coronary artery bypass graft surgery, Tehran, Iran

Aims: Hypertension (HTN) is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We evaluated the degree of adherence to ‘Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension’ (DASH) diet in hypertensive (H) and normotensive (N) candidates awaiting coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Methods: This was a cross‐sectional study on 417 coronary artery bypass graft candidates (219 normotensives and 198 hypertensives) hospitalised at a large heart centre. We created an adherence score to a DASH eating plan using food intake assessed via food frequency questionnaire. Results: Diet score categories were specified as 0–5.4 (weak adherence), 5.5–7.4 (moderate adherence) and 7.5–10 (excellent adherence). Only 28% of all the participants were in the top score category. The mean of scores were not different between N and H groups (6.5 ± 1.2 vs 6.5 ± 1.2, P = 0.757). Regardless of HTN status, smokers had lower scores than non‐smokers ( P = 0.023) and diabetics had higher scores than non‐diabetics ( P = 0.045). The majority of participants met the goal for servings of meat followed by servings of vegetable and percent of energy from fat (87%, 81% and 71%, respectively). However, 68% of participants did not meet the sweet target and 49% of H patients did not reach the sodium intake recommendations. H patients consumed significantly lower sodium and sweets than N patients ( P = 0.01 and P < 0.001, respectively). Conclusions: Our results indicate moderate adherence to the DASH diet among candidates awaiting coronary artery bypass graft in both H and N patients. The adherence was lower among smokers and non‐diabetic patients.