By: Amy Gorin
When it comes to how diet affects heart health, sodium is typically central to the discussion, but another nutrient is just as vital and often overlooked.
It's bananas how little most people know about potassium--we affiliate this key mineral with the yellow fruit and that's it. While salt is often in the spotlight for its effects on blood pressure and heart health, potassium is just as influential in regulating these crucial aspects of our biology.
"A salt-sensitive person will lower his or her blood pressure if he or she eats more potassium and/or less sodium," says Jerry Yee, M.D., division head of nephrology at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. "[These minerals] may be equally important, but society is concentrating on the sodium side right now. If too much dietary sodium is taken in, the blood pressure increases [for salt-sensitive people]. Salt sensitivity is greater in Asian populations and African Americans."
Most potassium in the body is located within the cells. A small amount takes residence outside of those cells and is influenced by the potassium you get in foods, hormones such as insulin, and excretion from the kidneys. Eating foods rich in potassium may have a greater impact in regulating blood pressure when consumed with sodium. In a 2014 study published in the Clinical Journal of American Society of Nephrology, subjects with hypertension who increased their potassium intake and also ate a diet rich in salt saw a drop of 9.5 mmHg for systolic blood pressure (top number) and a decrease of 6.4 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure.
So how much potassium do you need to stay healthy? Here are 13 easy ways to up your daily intake.