Potassium Can Improve Women’s Heart Health

“It is well known that high salt consumption is associated with elevated blood pressure and a raised risk of heart attacks and strokes,” said the study author, Professor Liffert Vogt of Amsterdam University Medical Centers, the Netherlands. “Health advice has focused on limiting salt intake, but this is difficult to achieve when our diets include processed foods. Potassium helps the body excrete more sodium in the urine. In our study, dietary potassium was linked with the greatest health gains in women.”

The researchers analyzed the association between potassium intake and blood pressure after adjusting for age, sex and sodium intake. Their research revealed that when women consumed more potassium, their blood pressure numbers dropped. When researchers factored sodium intake back into the equation, the effect potassium had on women’s blood pressure was only observed in women with a high sodium intake. Every increased gram of potassium these women consumed meant a 2.4Hg drop in systolic blood pressure. 

During follow-ups about 20 years later, the researchers analyzed the association between potassium intake and cardiovascular events after adjusting for age, sex, body mass index, sodium intake, use of lipid-lowering drugs, smoking, alcohol intake, diabetes and prior heart attack or stroke. Overall, people with the largest potassium intake had a 13% lower risk of cardiovascular events compared to those with the lowest potassium intake.

When men and women were analyzed separately, the corresponding risk reductions were 7% and 11%, respectively. The amount of salt in the diet did not influence the relationship in men or women.

Potassium Can Improve Heart Health

The results suggest that potassium helps preserve heart health in women specifically. The relationship between potassium and cardiovascular events was the same regardless of a person’s salt intake. This suggests that potassium has other ways of protecting the heart on top of increasing sodium excretion.

The World Health Organization recommends that adults consume at least 3.5 grams of potassium and less than 2 grams of sodium per day. Foods with a high potassium concentration include vegetables, fruit, nuts, beans, dairy products and fish. For example, a 115-gram banana has 375 mg of potassium, 154 grams of cooked salmon has 780 mg, a 136-gram potato has 500 mg, and 1 cup of milk has 375 mg.

Professor Vogt concluded, “Our findings indicate that a heart healthy diet goes beyond limiting salt to boosting potassium content. Food companies can help by swapping standard sodium-based salt for a potassium salt alternative in processed foods. On top of that, we should all prioritize fresh, unprocessed foods since they are both rich in potassium and low in salt.”