If you have high blood pressure, don’t just lay off the sodium — counteract it.
That’s what a recent study published in a scientific journal of the American Physiological Society suggests.
Higher sodium intake is associated with higher blood pressure — an issue that nearly half of American adults contend with.
Finding the ideal ratio of sodium and potassium intake, however, could be a better solution for lowering blood pressure than simply decreasing sodium.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo created computational models — basically, specially programmed simulations — that mimicked how levels of potassium and sodium affect blood pressure.
They concluded that adding more potassium-rich foods like bananas and broccoli to your diet can help lower blood pressure.
“Early humans ate lots of fruits and vegetables, and as a result, our body’s regulatory systems may have evolved to work best with a high potassium, low sodium diet,” Melissa Stadt, lead author of the study, says in a summary of the findings. “Today, Western diets tend to be much higher in sodium and lower in potassium.”
Potassium has already been identified as an important ingredient in naturally reducing blood pressure, but this study is unique in that it used mathematics to decipher a balance between potassium and sodium.
Both sodium and potassium are electrolytes, which influence how your body maintains blood and fluid volume, help send electrical signals through the body to contract muscles and perform other essential functions.
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