HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, July 22, 2022 (HealthDay Information) — It could sound bananas, however new analysis reveals consuming this potassium-rich meals can enhance coronary heart well being.
Avocados and salmon are also excessive in potassium, serving to counteract the detrimental results of salt within the weight loss program and decreasing blood stress, researchers stated. Different potassium-rich meals embody a wide range of greens, fruits, nuts, beans, dairy merchandise and fish.
“It’s well-known that top salt consumption is related to elevated blood stress and a raised threat of coronary heart assaults and strokes,” stated examine creatorDr. Liffert Vogt, a professor of scientific nephrology and renal physiology at Amsterdam College Medical Facilities within the Netherlands.
“Well being recommendation has targeted on limiting salt consumption however that is troublesome to realize when our diets embody processed meals,” he stated. “Potassium helps the physique excrete extra sodium within the urine. In our examine, dietary potassium was linked with the best well being good points in girls.”
The examine included near 25,000 British women and men between 40 and 79 years of age who have been a part of a analysis examine between 1993 and 1997. Individuals accomplished questionnaires about their life-style habits and their blood stress and urine samples have been analyzed.
Urinary sodium and potassium have been used to gauge dietary consumption.
The researchers discovered that as potassium consumption in girls went up, blood stress went down. And as potassium consumption rose, so did girls’s blood stress.
Each 1-gram enhance in day by day potassium was related to a 2.4 mm Hg decrease systolic blood stress for these girls. No hyperlink between potassium and blood stress was present in males.
Individuals have been adopted a median of 19.5 years (which means half have been adopted longer, half for a shorter time). Throughout that point, 55% of contributors have been hospitalized or died because of coronary heart illness.
After adjusting for such elements as age, intercourse, physique mass index, use of tobacco, alcohol and lipid-lowering medicine, diabetes and prior coronary heart assault or stroke, researchers discovered that folks with the very best potassium consumption had a 13% decrease threat of heart-related issues in comparison with these with the bottom consumption.
Males had a 7% decrease threat of coronary heart issues and ladies an 11% decrease threat, the examine discovered. The quantity of salt within the weight loss program didn’t affect the connection between potassium and coronary heart occasions in both intercourse, researchers stated.
The findings have been revealed July 22 in European Coronary heart Journal.
“The outcomes recommend that potassium helps protect coronary heart well being, however that girls profit greater than males,” Vogt stated in a journal information launch. “The connection between potassium and cardiovascular occasions was the identical no matter salt consumption, suggesting that potassium has different methods of defending the guts on high of accelerating sodium excretion.”
The World Well being Group recommends adults eat at the very least 3.5 grams of potassium and fewer than 2 grams of sodium (5 grams of salt) day by day.
A 4-ounce banana has 375 mg of potassium; 5.5 ounces of cooked salmon has 780 mg; a virtually 5-ounce potato has 500 mg, and 1 cup of milk has 375 mg.
“Our findings point out {that a} coronary heart nutritious diet goes past limiting salt to boosting potassium content material,” Vogt stated. “Meals firms can assist by swapping customary sodium-based salt for a potassium salt various in processed meals. On high of that, we should always all prioritize recent, unprocessed meals since they’re each wealthy in potassium and low in salt.”
Extra data
Dietary Pointers for Individuals presents extra data on potassium-rich meals.
SOURCE: European Coronary heart Journal, information launch, July 22, 2022
