Posted on 04/15/2025 6:08:46 AM PDT by Red Badger
In a nutshell
Potassium can lower blood pressure, even on a salty diet. Simulations showed that increasing potassium intake significantly reduced blood pressure, even when sodium levels stayed high, with drops of up to 14 mmHg in men and 10 mmHg in women.
Men and women respond differently to potassium. The models revealed that female kidneys handle sodium differently, offering natural protection against high blood pressure, while men showed a stronger blood pressure response to dietary potassium.
Balancing potassium and sodium may matter more than cutting salt alone. The study suggests that boosting potassium-rich foods like leafy greens, beans, and sweet potatoes could be a powerful, underused strategy for managing blood pressure.
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WATERLOO, Canada — Want to lower your blood pressure? Skip the salt shaker and reach for a banana instead. A new study reveals that boosting your potassium intake might be a powerful way to combat high blood pressure.
Scientists from the University of Waterloo in Canada found that high-potassium diets can significantly reduce blood pressure, even when you’re still consuming a fair amount of salt. This study, published in the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, challenges what we’ve long believed about managing hypertension and suggests potassium deserves more attention in our dietary choices.
High blood pressure affects millions of people worldwide and remains the leading cause of heart disease and premature death. Its prevalence has been climbing in recent years, thanks in part to our aging population and lifestyle changes, particularly our love affair with processed foods that are typically loaded with salt but lacking in potassium.
How Potassium Fights High Blood Pressure
Using computer simulations showing hypertension scenarios, researchers found that doubling potassium intake reduced blood pressure by up to 14 mmHg in men and 10 mmHg in women. To put that in perspective, many blood pressure medications aim to reduce readings by similar amounts.
Potassium’s beneficial effects continued even when salt consumption remained high. This suggests that you might be able to partially offset the harmful effects of that salty pizza or bag of chips by making sure you’re also eating plenty of potassium-rich foods.
Instead of testing these theories on human subjects, the researchers built complex mathematical models that simulate how the body responds to different mineral intakes. These computer models captured the intricate dance between the kidneys, heart, nervous system, and hormones involved in blood pressure regulation.
It’s well known that women typically have lower blood pressure than men of the same age before menopause, and these simulations helped identify why that is the case.
The research team found that women’s reduced response to hypertension triggers, including high salt intake, appears to be largely because of the different way female kidneys transport sodium, giving women some natural protection against blood pressure spikes.
In the short term, when you consume potassium-rich foods, your digestive system sends immediate signals to your kidneys before your blood potassium levels even change. This “feedforward” system triggers increased potassium excretion in urine, helping prevent dangerous spikes in blood potassium.
Blood pressure meter and heart
Research shows incorporating more potassium into your diet can effectively lower blood pressure. (New Africa/Shutterstock) In the longer term, high potassium intake causes your kidneys to decrease sodium reabsorption in multiple parts of their filtering units. This leads to greater sodium excretion, reducing fluid volume in your blood vessels and consequently lowering blood pressure. This explains why potassium can help offset the effects of high-sodium diets: it essentially helps your body eliminate more sodium through urine.
Balancing Your Diet for Heart Health
Loading up on potassium-rich foods like sweet potatoes, spinach, avocados, and white beans could be a simple dietary approach to help keep your blood pressure in check. The ratio of potassium to sodium might matter more than your total sodium intake alone, emphasizing the importance of a balanced diet.
And, because men and women respond differently to dietary changes and potentially to blood pressure medications, doctors might need more personalized approaches when treating hypertension.
Overall, consuming more fruits and vegetables while limiting processed foods is a great first step. The potassium-rich diets our ancestors ate likely protected them from hypertension, even with relatively high salt intake, a balance that modern eating habits have increasingly disrupted.
Paper Summary
Methodology
The researchers created sex-specific computer models to simulate how sodium, potassium, and fluid balance affect blood pressure throughout the body. These models accounted for known biological differences between males and females, including kidney function, hormone levels, nervous system activity, and blood vessel responses. The models captured interactions among the kidneys, heart, digestive system, and various regulatory systems. They then ran simulations with different combinations of sodium intake, potassium intake, and various types of hypertension to see how these factors affect blood pressure differently in men versus women.
Results
The simulations showed that high sodium intake raised blood pressure in both sexes, but the effect was smaller in females. When potassium intake was doubled, blood pressure decreased significantly—by up to 14 mmHg in males and 10 mmHg in females with certain types of hypertension. Notably, higher potassium intake counteracted the blood pressure-raising effects of high sodium intake. Women’s different kidney transporter pattern appeared largely responsible for their protection against hypertension, as they reabsorb less sodium in the early parts of the kidney filtering system. High potassium intake triggered several kidney adaptations that lowered blood pressure, including reduced sodium reabsorption in both early and later portions of the kidney tubules, increasing sodium excretion.
Limitations
The study used computer models rather than actual human subjects, and had to extrapolate some sex-specific parameters from rat studies due to limited human data. The models represent normal blood pressure or mild hypertension conditions and may not apply to severe hypertension. The researchers acknowledged their representation of the hormone system involved in blood pressure regulation was simplified, potentially underestimating sex differences. Additionally, the models didn’t explicitly account for nitric oxide or oxidative stress, which show sex differences and play important roles in blood pressure regulation.
Funding and Disclosures
This research was partially funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Publication Information
The study titled “Modulation of blood pressure by dietary potassium and sodium: sex differences and modeling analysis” was authored by Melissa Stadt and Anita T. Layton from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was published in the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology (Volume 328, pages F406-F417) in 2025, first published online on October 24, 2024.
Ping!...................
I buy 4 every week. I got into Banana’s Foster. Breakfast is a happy time in my house.
Just sayin'
lol!
I’m not sayin’ diet can’t have anything to do with it, but if you have a stressful job or stressful life, bananas aren’t going to do jack
Gonna try this. I’m the cook and the shopper so it’ll be easy.
Worth a try.
Tired of taking pills that sap my energy.
And yeah, I had NO hypertension until after I got The Shot. (no boosters)
No, no, no. The guy in the commercial says you need to take those pills with crushed up vegetables in them.
I used to eat a banana daily, but in order to skip the carbs, I now use NuSalt (Potassium Chloride) on my eggs every day. It’s also part of my homemade electrolyte mix.
I pay careful attention to the recommended daily allowance though, because too much potassium can cause some serious problems
More research dollars wasted. /s
Maybe they should focus more on what causes high blood pressure.
That stated, I eat a banana every mid-morning as a snack...
...but NOT to “lower my blood pressure”
(and not specifically for the potassium)
Be aware: high potassium can be bad for the kidneys. Moderation might be the key.
Bananas are very high in sugar, there are other ways to get potassium, such as avocados.
I eat bananas as a matter of course. Always have................
Yes but watch where you leave those banana peels.
Salt substitute is potassium
Bananas bananas the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel then Youre rezdy for another meal... of bananas,
Of course, I despise banana’s. My kids used to chase me around the house with them.
It always intrigues me why sodium and potassium have opposite effects on BP, yet both are Group 1 Alkali Metal electrolytes in the lithium family. I guess it's all in the electron shell structure differences.
Osmotic forces cause sodium to move from inside cells to the blood which temporarily increases blood volume. High sodium intake (e.g., from salty foods) causes the kidneys to retain more water, raising blood volume and putting pressure on artery walls, which elevates blood pressure. Excess sodium can stiffen blood vessels and increase resistance, further raising pressure. It also disrupts the balance with potassium, impairing the body’s ability to relax vessels.
Potassium helps kidneys excrete excess sodium through urine, reducing blood volume and easing pressure on arteries. It promotes blood vessel relaxation (vasodilation) by stimulating nitric oxide release and countering sodium’s constricting effects, lowering resistance.
avocados - Mmmm! Sometimes to pricey for me.
Why not just take a potassium pill.....? ....just askn for a friend....Spokeshave at 125/70/55 this am.....and at 83 yrs.
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