Potassium-rich meals could also be key

The big-scale examine took virtually 25,000 contributors from the EPIC-Norfolk examine within the U.Okay. Individuals ranged in age from 40 to 79, with imply ages of 59 for males and 58 for ladies.

Initially of the examine, all contributors stuffed out a way of life questionnaire. Researchers then measured their blood strain and picked up a urine pattern. They estimated dietary consumption of sodium and potassium ranges by measuring urinary ranges of those two minerals.

Researchers analyzed the impact of potassium consumption on blood strain, after adjusting for age, intercourse and sodium consumption.

In girls, they discovered a unfavourable correlation between potassium consumption and systolic blood strain (SBP) — as consumption elevated, SBP decreased. The impact was best in these girls who had the best sodium consumption.

In girls with a excessive sodium consumption, each 1 gram improve in day by day potassium was related to 2.4 millimeters of mercury (mm/Hg) decrease SBP.

“Decreasing the SBP by simply over 1 mm/Hg is just not clinically important in observe. What it does point out is that sodium consumption alone is just not the one issue we needs to be concentrating on when stopping CVD, and personalised diet approaches are key in reaching optimum well being outcomes,” famous Prof. Spector.

The researchers discovered no affiliation between potassium consumption and blood strain in males.

The WHO recommends that adults ought to devour 3,510 miligrams (mg) of potassium and not more than 2,000 mg of sodium per day. Most adults at the moment have an excessive amount of sodium and too little potassium of their eating regimen.

To extend potassium consumption, an individual ought to embrace meals which are excessive in potassium of their eating regimen.

These embrace:

• bananas
• candy potatoes
• dried fruits, akin to raisins, apricots and prunes
• beans, peas and lentils
• seafood
• avocados.

Prof. Spector supplied related recommendation, saying: “I believe the recommendation we needs to be giving is to extend entire plant meals, naturally excessive in potassium, akin to avocados, legumes, artichokes, beets and apricots, and decrease ultra-processed meals which are sometimes very excessive in sodium.”

The researchers adopted up with contributors after a median of 19.5 years, with the final recordings in March 2016. Throughout this time, 55% had been hospitalized or died attributable to CVD.

The researchers seemed for any affiliation between dietary potassium and cardiovascular occasions, having managed for age, intercourse, physique mass index, sodium consumption, use of lipid-lowering medication, smoking, alcohol consumption, diabetes and prior coronary heart assault or stroke.

They discovered that, total, these with the best potassium consumption had a 13% decrease danger of cardiovascular occasions than these with the bottom.

When analyzed individually, excessive potassium consumption diminished the lads’s danger by 7%, and the ladies’s by 11%. Dietary sodium didn’t affect the connection between potassium and CVD.

“The outcomes counsel that potassium helps protect coronary heart well being, however that girls profit greater than males. 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,” explains examine writer Prof. Liffert Vogt, from Amsterdam College Medical Facilities within the Netherlands.

Though larger potassium consumption had the best impact in these girls with a high-sodium eating regimen, present recommendation is to restrict sodium consumption.

“Lowering sodium consumption alone doesn’t enable for a eating regimen which improves well being, it merely tries to scale back danger by eradicating a single part of meals, which is just too reductionist,” mentioned Prof. Spector.

“The salt discount program within the U.Okay. launched almost 20 years in the past has helped lower salt content material in processed meals however CVD prevalence has proven little proof of change — decreasing sodium consumption is just not the magic bullet within the combat towards CVD,” he identified.

So, maybe—significantly for ladies—growing the consumption of potassium-rich meals might be an efficient strategy to try to defend cardiovascular well being.