For the second year in a row the DASH diet has taken the top spot for “Best Diet Overall” in U.S. News and World Report’s Best Diets 2012, which rates different popular weight loss programs.
DASH, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, encourages dieters to eat whole grains, fruits, vegetables and lean proteins and aims to prevent and lower blood pressure.
The Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) Diet took second place, and the Mayo Clinic diet placed third.
The DASH diet also ranked nu
mber one for the “Best Diet for Healthy Eating” and tied with the Biggest Loser diet for the “Best Diabetes Diet.” According to U.S. News, the advantages to the program are that it’s heart healthy and nutritionally sound, and lists the disadvantages as lots of grunt work and somewhat pricey.
“Best Commercial Diet Plan” went to Weight Watchers, which also placed first in “Best Weight-Loss Diet” and “Easiest Diet to Follow.”
The results were chosen by a 22-person panel of experts in diet, nutrition, obesity, food psychology, diabetes and heart disease. The panel rated the 25 diets in seven categories based on information from sources like government reports and scientific journals. They looked at how easy the diets are to follow, their ability to produce short-term and long-term weight loss, nutritional completeness, safety and potential for preventing and managing diabetes and heart disease.
Other diets looked at included the Mediterranean diet, the Jenny Craig diet, the Volumetrics diet, the Ornish diet, the Vegetarian diet, the Slim-Fast diet, the Nutri-System diet and the South Beach diet.
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