This may tempt all potato-chip lovers to dig in up to the elbows, without a shred of guilt: A new study has revealed that teenagers who eat lots of potassium have lower blood pressure as adults, and lowering salt intake had no effect.
But don’t grab your favorite salty snack just yet. This isn’t a free pass to start indulging unhealthy habits.
The Boston University study is the first of its kind, The New York Times reported. Researchers followed more than 2,000 10-year-old girls from childhood until they were teenagers, monitoring their eating habits and blood pressure.
The girls ate up to 4,000 miligrams of sodium a day – which is about how much the average American consumes (we’re only supposed to eat 2,300 milligrams by the way), The Cleveland Health Clinic added.
Though that seems like a heck of a lot of sodium, the study found it had no affect on the teenagers’ heart health. Which is lucky, because school lunches contain plenty of it. The teenagers who ate potassium had lower blood pressure, but had to eat about 2,400 milligrams of potassium each day to reap the benefit (the mineral helps regulate heart beat, reduces stroke risk and maintains muscle mass).
The lesson: Concentrate on your bananas and don’t concern yourself so much with salt.
But what about those of us who aren’t teenagers? Can we turn to the FunYuns without worry?
Not exactly. Those pesky doctors still want us to limit salt to 1,500 milligrams a day for people with diabetes or chronic kidney disease. The rest of us can have up to 2,300 milligrams. Still, scientists haven’t been able to prove that salt intake is bad for you – at least not as seriously as they once thought.
These new findings won’t change dietary recommendations and could inspire scientists to look further into sodium and potassium’s effect on the health of children, teenagers and adults.
So for now, you still should eat more potassium and a little less salt. And we already know which foods should be off-limits, added registered dietitian Jennifer Willoughby.
“The foods that are high in sodium are foods that we don’t necessarily want to be eating anyway. Processed, canned, and fast foods are going to have a lot of sodium, fat, and sugar.”
The fun stuff, in other words. But potassium-rich foods can be tasty, too – even for teenagers: Bananas, raisins, potatoes – sweet and regular – guacamole, yogurt, leafy greens and beans.
[Photo Courtesy Bruno Vincent/Getty Images]
Potassium Vital For Teenagers, And Salt Isn’t The Big Bad Wolf After All is an article from: The Inquisitr News
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