For decades, one of the most common recommendations for lowering high blood pressure has been simple: eat less salt. But a new scientific report suggests that this advice may be missing an equally important part of the equation.
Researchers say that increasing potassium intake, rather than focusing only on reducing sodium, could lead to better blood pressure control. By addressing both nutrients together, this approach could strengthen efforts to prevent hypertension and reduce the risk of serious cardiovascular problems.
The potential impact is enormous. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, affects more than 1.28 billion adults worldwide and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes. Although public health recommendations have traditionally emphasized cutting sodium, researchers now argue that getting enough potassium deserves just as much attention.
Why Potassium Matters for Blood Pressure
Sodium and potassium are essential minerals that help regulate fluid balance, nerve signaling, and muscle function. Both also influence blood pressure, but they affect the body in different ways.
Eating too much sodium can cause the body to retain additional fluid, increasing the pressure inside blood vessels. Potassium helps counter some of sodium’s effects by supporting the kidneys in removing excess sodium through urine. It also contributes to the normal functioning of blood vessel walls, which plays an important role in maintaining healthy blood pressure.
In a new report, physicians and health experts argue that dietary recommendations should address these two minerals together. Rather than treating sodium reduction as the primary solution, they propose combining it with greater potassium consumption to achieve stronger results.
“It is time to view dietary interventions holistically because food components interact and physiology is integrative across systems,” said Naomi Fukagawa, M.D. Ph.D., professor of medicine emerita at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and first author on the report. “Growing evidence shows that increasing dietary potassium as well as reducing sodium intake work together to better manage hypertension.”
A Major Rethink of Blood Pressure Guidelines
The report, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was supported by the IAFNS Sodium in Food and Health Implications Committee.
The researchers examined the scientific evidence underlying current sodium and potassium recommendations, along with practical ways to reduce sodium consumption and increase potassium intake. They also explored the obstacles to implementing these changes and identified areas where additional research and updated public health policies could help improve outcomes.
One of the central concerns is that many people consume too much sodium while getting nowhere near enough potassium. Both dietary patterns can contribute to elevated blood pressure, making them important targets for prevention and treatment.
Despite widespread efforts to encourage people to limit salt, average sodium consumption continues to exceed recommended levels. Meanwhile, potassium intake remains “far below optimal levels in both developed and developing nations,” according to the authors.
This imbalance suggests that focusing primarily on what people should eat less of may be overlooking an important opportunity to improve cardiovascular health by encouraging them to consume more of a beneficial nutrient.
How to Get More Potassium in Your Diet
Potassium is naturally present in many familiar foods, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, and dairy products. Bananas, potatoes, beans, leafy greens, and yogurt are examples of foods that can help increase potassium intake.
Another possibility is replacing some sodium chloride, the main ingredient in ordinary table salt, with potassium salts. These substitutes can help reduce sodium while simultaneously increasing potassium, potentially addressing both dietary goals at once.
However, creating these products presents challenges for food manufacturers. Adding too much potassium salt can produce an unpleasant metallic taste, limiting how much can be used without affecting flavor. Manufacturers must therefore find a balance that improves nutritional content while keeping foods appealing to consumers.
Increasing potassium is also not appropriate for everyone. People with kidney disease or those taking certain medications may have difficulty regulating potassium levels, so potassium supplements and potassium-based salt substitutes should be used with medical guidance when these concerns apply.
A New Strategy for Fighting High Blood Pressure
The researchers emphasize that reducing sodium remains essential. Their proposal is not to abandon existing advice, but to expand it by recognizing that potassium intake is another major factor in blood pressure regulation.
The authors conclude that “dietary sodium reduction is a foundational strategy for hypertension prevention and management. However, new evidence supports a broadening of the current approach that focuses solely on sodium reduction and provides equal emphasis on increasing potassium intake.”
For the more than one billion people living with hypertension, this shift in thinking could have significant implications. Instead of concentrating almost exclusively on reducing salt, future dietary recommendations may increasingly emphasize the combined benefits of consuming less sodium and more potassium.
The underlying message is straightforward: better blood pressure control may depend not only on what people remove from their diets, but also on what they add.
