Potassium-Rich Salt Lowers Cardiac Risks

The dangers associated with too much salt in the diet have long been known, but not many of us do much about it – food doesn’t taste as good without salt, especially as one gets older. However, a study from Taiwan, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, points to the health benefits of potassium-enriched salt.

A veterans retirement home in Taiwan served as the site for this study. There were nearly 2000 elderly men served by 5 different kitchens. Two of the kitchens were assigned to use potassium-enriched salt, while the other three got food prepared with regular salt (sodium chloride). The number of cardiovascular-related deaths (heart attack, cardiac arrest, stroke) was less in the enriched salt group than in those eating ‘regular’ salt; the incidence was 13.1% in the enriched-, and 20.5% in the regular-salt groups, over the 31-month experimental period, a significant reduction.

The Morton salt company makes low-sodium table salt (Morton Lite Salt® Mixture) that contains less sodium and more potassium than regular salt, and corresponds quite closely to the enriched salt used in the Taiwanese study.

Before you go too far and use potassium instead of sodium wherever possible in your diet, remember that one can overdose on potassium; this is more likely in older people with kidney problems or who are taking ACE inhibitors for their blood pressure. You can get plenty of potassium in your diet – bananas, apricots, avocados, melons, beans, artichoke, lettuce, chard, peanuts, and soybeans.