Eating more potassium-rich foods may be effective for lowering blood pressure

New research from the University of Waterloo suggests that increasing the ratio between potassium in the diet to sodium intake can be more effective for lowering blood pressure than just lowering sodium intake.

High blood pressure affects more than 30 percent of adults worldwide. It is the main cause of coronary heart disease and strokes and can also lead to other disorders such as chronic kidney disease, heart failure, irregular heartbeats and dementia.

“Usually, when we have high blood pressure, we are advised to eat less salt,” said Anita Layton, professor of applied mathematics, computer science, pharmacy and biology at the University of Waterloo and the Canada 150 Research Chair in Mathematical Biology and Medicine.

“Our research suggests that adding more potassium -rich food to your diet, such as bananas or broccoli, can have a greater positive impact on your blood pressure than just cutting sodium.”

Potassium and sodium are both electrolytes – substances that help the body send electrical signals to walk on muscles, to influence the amount of water in your body and perform other essential functions.

Early people ate a lot of fruit and fruit, and as a result, the regulatory systems of our body may have evolved to work best with a high potassium, a low sodium diet. “

Melissa Stadt, PhD student in Waterloo’s Department of Applied Mathematics and main author of the study

“Nowadays, Western diets are usually much higher in sodium and lower in potassium. That can explain why high blood pressure is mainly found in industrialized societies, not in isolated societies.”

Although previous research has been shown that the increasing potassium intake can help control blood pressure, the researchers have developed a mathematical model that successfully identifies how the ratio to sodium influences the body.

The model also identifies how sex differences influence the relationship between potassium and blood pressure. The study showed that men more easily develop high blood pressure than pre-menopausal women, but men also respond positively to an increased potassium ratio to sodium.

The researchers emphasize that mathematical models such as those in this study allow these types of experiments to identify how different factors influence the body quickly, cheap and ethically.

The study, modulation of blood pressure through food calendar and sodium: gender differences and modeling analysis, has recently been published in the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology.