A nurse on the cardiac step-down unit is caring for a patient who is recovering from a myocardial infarction and drug eluding stent placement. The nurse is preparing to educate the patient on the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet which includes which of the following recommendations?

Explanation

•The DASH diet is the "Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension" diet.

•An important part of the DASH diet approach is a low sodium diet with recommendations of intake less than 2300 mg of sodium daily.

•People with other co-morbidities like diabetes and heart disease are recommended to have less sodium intake. Water is drawn to sodium (think about how thirsty you get when eating salty snacks like potato chips), so increased sodium intake causes fluid retention. This increased fluid retention can cause increased blood pressure because more fluid is circulating in the bloodstream and blood vessels. Because of this correlation, decreasing sodium intake can help reduce the amount of excess fluid in the blood, and blood pressure will also decrease.

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