I’ve hypertension and have been taking medication to regulate it for years. It not too long ago spiked once more and my physician tweaked my prescription. However I’ve additionally been taking issues into my very own arms, limiting how a lot salt I eat, plus a little bit of self-medication with an off-the-shelf complement. My blood strain is again below management.

You would possibly assume that it was the treatment and my salty sacrifice that did the trick. They nearly definitely performed a component. However my complement of alternative – potassium – could have really performed the heavy lifting.

Hypertension, or hypertension, is the world’s most typical explanation for dying. And whereas there’s little doubt that extra dietary salt (sodium chloride) can elevate blood strain and that most individuals would profit from consuming much less, many people battle to take action. We urgently want a greater answer, and rising proof suggests we could have one in potassium.

“Potassium is absolutely necessary,” says Bruce Neal on the George Institute for World Well being in Sydney, Australia. “There’s little question that potassium will decrease blood strain.”

Understanding precisely the way it works, how a lot we should always devour and its impact on blood strain is of rising curiosity to researchers, who’re beginning to realise the large affect it might have in preventing our international battle in opposition to heart problems. Have we lastly found a extra palatable approach of satisfying salt cravings that received’t injury…