Want to protect your heart? You can start by pumping up your potassium intake. Consuming more potassium helps lower your blood pressure if you have hypertension, and it’s also associated with a lower risk of stroke, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal.
Researchers reviewed and analyzed 33 trials and studies on how increased potassium intake affects blood pressure, all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and coronary heart disease. What they found: A higher potassium intake slashed stroke risk by 24 percent. In people with hypertension, it also reduced systolic blood pressure by 3.49 millimeters of mercury (the units used to measure blood pressure) and lowered diastolic blood pressure by 1.96 millimeters of mercury.
Those numbers might sound small, but they can lead to major results: If everyone in the U.S. lowered their diastolic blood pressure by about 2 millimeters of mercury, it could prevent around 67,000 incidences of coronary heart disease and 34,000 strokes each year, according to the study.
Potassium helps relax the walls of the blood vessels that lead to your heart. Relaxed blood vessels reduces blood flow resistance, and helps your body get rid of sodium—all of which helps regulate blood pressure, says Elena Kuklina, MD, PhD, nutritional epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and adjunct professor of nutrition at Emory University.
That’s why the World Health Organization now suggests that adults and children consume at least 3,510 mg of potassium each day (that’s about the amount you’d find in five to six servings of fruits and vegetables). The good news? Adding potassium to your diet can be really easy, says study author Nancy Aburto, PhD, a nutritional advisor at the United Nations World Food Programme and a former scientist at the World Health Organization. Beans and peas; nuts; vegetables like spinach, cabbage, and parsley; and fruits like bananas, papayas, kiwis, strawberries, and dates are all loaded with potassium. It’s also a good idea to stay away from processed foods, which contain less potassium than their unprocessed counterparts and account for around 75 percent of sodium intake in industrialized countries, says Aburto.
To add more potassium to your diet, start with these delicious potassium-rich recipes:
Ginger-Sweet Potato Cheesecake
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How Sodium Affects Heart Health
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