Potassium lowers blood pressure. New study

http://www.scientistlive.com/European-Science-News/Medical/Potassium_lowers_blood_pressure/21618/

Well I've been telling people for years, both in this blog and on my website (www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk) that potassium lowers blood pressure and that the way in which it does that is by displacing some excess sodium from the bloodstream.

Anyway, the link I have given from the scientistlive.com website gives interesting information from a new study. Obviously the main dietary change necessary to lower high blood pressure is to reduce sodium intake, but when lower sodium is accompanied by plenty of potassium this lowers high blood pressure even more.

I recommend you read the whole article, but here, at any rate, is an extract from it:

"The new study "is a quantum leap in the quality of the data compared to what we have had before," Whelton said.

Whelton was a member of a recent Institute of Medicine panel that set dietary recommendations for salt and potassium. The panel said healthy 19-to-50 year-old adults should consume no more than 2,300 milligrammes of sodium per day -- equivalent to one teaspoon of table salt. More than 95 percent of American men and 75 percent of American women in this age range exceed this amount.

To lower blood pressure and blunt the effects of salt, adults should consume 4.7 grams of potassium per day unless they have a clinical condition or medication need that is a contraindication to increased potassium intake. Most American adults aged 31-to-50 consume only about half as much as recommended in the Institute of Medicine report. Changes in diet and physical activity should be under the supervision of a health care professional.

Good potassium sources include fruits, vegetables, dairy foods and fish. Foods that are especially rich in potassium include potatoes and sweet potatoes, fat-free milk and yogurt, tuna, lima beans, bananas, tomato sauce and orange juice. Potassium also is available in supplements.

Whelton is among the nation's top experts on high blood pressure. He has published more than 400 papers on the subject, and has been the principal investigator on more than $100 million of studies funded by the National Institutes of Health."

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

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