Potassium-rich foods cut stroke, death risks among older women

Older women who eat foods with higher amounts of potassium, such as potatoes and bananas, may be at lower risk of stroke and death than women who consume less potassium-rich foods, scientists, including those of Indian-origin, have found.
Researchers studied 90,137 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 79, for 11 years and looked at how much potassium the women consumed, as well as if they had strokes, including ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes, or died during the study period.
Women in the study were stroke-free at the start and their average dietary potassium intake was 2,611 mg/day.
"Previous studies have shown that potassium consumption may lower blood pressure. But whether potassium intake could prevent stroke or death wasn't clear," said Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, study senior author and distinguished university professor emerita, department of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

"Our findings give women another reason to eat their fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are good sources of potassium, and potassium not only lowers postmenopausal women's risk of stroke, but also death," she said.
The results of the study were based on potassium from food, not supplements, the researchers said.

Women who ate the most potassium were 12 per cent less likely to suffer stroke in general and 16 per cent less likely to suffer an ischemic stroke than women who ate the least.
Women who ate the most potassium were 10 per cent less likely to die than those who ate the least.

Among women who did not have hypertension (whose blood pressure was normal and they were not on any medications for high blood pressure), those who ate the most potassium had a 27 per cent lower ischemic stroke risk and 21 per cent reduced risk for all stroke types, compared to women who ate the least potassium in their daily diets.
Among women with hypertension (whose blood pressure was high or they were taking drugs for high blood pressure), those who ate the most potassium had a lower risk of death, but potassium intake did not lower their stroke risk.
Researchers suggested that higher dietary potassium intake may be more beneficial before high blood pressure develops.

They also said there was no evidence of any association between potassium intake and hemorrhagic stroke, which could be related to the low number of hemorrhagic strokes in the study.
The first author of the study, published in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke, was Arjun Seth and other co-authors included Yasmin Mossavar-Rahmani, Victor Kamensky, Brian Silver, Kamakshi Lakshminarayan, Ross Prentice and Linda Van Horn.