For better heart health, increase your intake of potassium and make sure the salt you consume is unrefined, not refined salt.
That’s Newsmax Health Contributor Dr. David Brownstein’s take-away message regarding a recently published study that found that the combination of too little potassium and too much sodium creates a greater risk to heart health than either condition on its own.
“We get way too much sodium in our diet from refined foods and refined salt and we’re not getting enough potassium,” Brownstein, editor of “The Natural Way to Health,” tells Newsmax Health. “Most Americans get about 50 percent of the RDI (recommended daily intake) for potassium right now. And we’re creating this sodium-potassium imbalance in the body … Most of us are woefully inadequate in potassium.”
Brownstein’s comments follow publication of a large study appearing this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine that showed people who consume excessive amounts of salt and little potassium have more than double the risk of heart attack death than people who eat the same amounts of both nutrients.
The risk was greater than just eating too much salt, which has been linked to high blood pressure. Potassium may have a neutralizing effect on the damage salt can do to the heart, Dr. Elena Kuklina, one of the study's authors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press.
Brownstein says more than 70 percent of his patients are “markedly deficient” in potassium, which is needed for regulating heart rhythm and for healthy muscles, immune system, and brain function. The government recommends a daily potassium intake of 4,700 milligrams for adults. (A medium-size banana contains 422 milligrams of potassium.) Organically raised meats and eggs and other fruits and vegetables also are good sources of potassium, Brownstein notes.
Excessive sodium in the American diet has become a problem due to an overconsumption of processed and restaurant foods, which contain lots of refined salt. Consumers should have about one to two teaspoons a day of healthier unrefined salt, Brownstein says, because it contains valuable minerals that are stripped from refined, or table salt. (With its thicker, larger crystals colored by its mineral content, unrefined salt, which is not the same as refined sea or kosher salt or salt substitutes, is available in health food stores.)
“Eliminating salt from our diets and expecting better health is nonsense … What we need to do is eat a better diet of unrefined salt and unrefined foods which will supply much more potassium in our diet.”
No comments:
Post a Comment