We’ve all heard the advice, we all eat too much salt (sodium chloride) and this can give us high blood pressure and lead to heart disease. But what about potassium chloride? Usually used to dilute sodium chloride in “low salt” salt.
That was one of the questions researchers had in mind whose paper was published in JAMA Pediatrics at the end of last month.
They recorded sodium and potassium intake and blood pressure in over 2000 girls aged 9 to 10 years and continued to collect data for 10 years.
They found that, surprising, sodium intake did not seem to correlate with blood pressure of the girls. In other words, as their sodium intake increased their blood pressure did not. In fact, those that consumed more than 3500mg per day generally had a lower blood pressure than those that consumed 2500mg.
It also appears than potassium intake is inversely associated with blood pressure, so those who were consuming more potassium had a significantly lower blood pressure.
I’m not ready to jump on the salty band wagon yet but these findings are certain to get a few feathers ruffled.