Reported by ScienceDaily
For decades, one of the most common recommendations for lowering high blood pressure has been simple: eat less salt. But a new scientific report suggests that this advice may be missing an equally important part of the equation.
Researchers say that increasing potassium intake, rather than focusing only on reducing sodium, could lead to better blood pressure control. By addressing both nutrients together, this approach could strengthen efforts to prevent hypertension and reduce the risk of serious cardiovascular problems.
The potential impact is enormous. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, affects more than 1.28 billion adults worldwide and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes. Although public health recommendations have traditionally emphasized cutting sodium, researchers now argue that getting enough potassium deserves just as much attention.
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Sodium and potassium are essential minerals that help regulate fluid balance, nerve signaling, and muscle function. Both also influence blood pressure, but they affect the body in different ways.
Eating too much sodium can cause the body to retain additional fluid, increasing the pressure inside blood vessels. Potassium helps counter some of sodium's effects by supporting the kidneys in removing excess sodium through urine. It also contributes to the normal functioning of blood vessel walls, which plays an important role in maintaining healthy blood pressure.
In a new report, physicians and health experts argue that dietary recommendations should address these two minerals together. Rather than treating sodium reduction as the primary solution, they propose combining it with greater potassium consumption to achieve stronger results.
"It is time to view dietary interventions holistically because food components interact and physiology is integrative across systems," said Naomi Fukagawa, M.D. Ph.D., professor of medicine emerita at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and first author on the report. "Growing evidence shows that increasing dietary potassium as well as reducing sodium intake work together to better manage hypertension."
The report, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , was supported by the IAFNS Sodium in Food and Health Implications Committee.
The researchers examined the…