High Potassium Foods That Lower Blood Pressure

Have a banana. It's good for your blood pressure. Even better, have some dried apricots and carrot juice.

Recent research continues to confirm what doctors have been telling us for a while: fruits and vegetables are good for us. But the new research shows that foods that are high in potassium content are especially likely lower a person's risk of developing hypertension or high blood pressure. They probably even lower blood pressure levels in people who already have hypertension.

In announcing the findings of their recent study, Dr. Mark C. Houston, from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Dr. Karen J. Harper from Harper Medical Communications, Inc. in Nashville noted that high blood pressure remains the chief reason for visits to doctors' offices and for prescription drug use in the U.S.

The researchers also pointed out that eating a lot of high-potassium foods is thought to be one reason why vegetarians don't get heart disease very often. In contrast, about one third of the population of many developed countries have hypertension. In these countries, consume a lot of processed foods and dietary sodium. For more information, see salt and blood pressure.

As an example, a typical American consumes about twice the sodium and half the potassium that is currently recommended in dietary guidelines.

The research was published in a special supplement to The Journal of Clinical Hypertension recently.