Will Low Potassium Cause A Stroke?
Many risk factors of stroke such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, obesity, and high blood sugar (more common in diabetic people) are linked with the kinds of foods that we eat every day. How about with low potassium? As well we know that this essential mineral is needed by the body to help regulate the amounts of sodium in cells. This is the major reason why some studies showed that getting adequate dietary potassium may help reduce the risk of stroke.
Can low potassium cause a stroke?
According to an article published in the official site of the University of Utah Health Care, getting plenty of dietary potassium may help prevent stroke effectively.
The study doesn’t specifically explain that low potassium diet can cause a stroke, but it’s important to get this mineral adequately in our diet.
In this study (which also published in the Journal Stroke), the risk of stroke in adults who consumed potassium more than 4,1 gram a day is a 50 percent lower than those who consumed lower than 2,3 gram a day.
How much potassium you should consume a day? The answer varies from person to person. Gender and age can play a key role in determining how much we should consume it from our daily diet.
For in-depth information about the body’s requirement of potassium per day in men and women from different age, visit this section!
How does potassium affect your chance of developing a stroke?
According to a review of some studies published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that involved about 128,000 participants, consumption of potassium can help reduce the risk of hypertension (high blood pressure) and eventually will also help reduce the risk of stroke.
There are some essential health benefits that you get from getting plenty of dietary potassium. In general, it can help the body to perform some normal body’s functions, these include for muscle and heart functions.
When it comes to the issue of how your body regulates the blood pressure naturally, potassium can play a key role for this mechanism.
The deficiency of this mineral in the diet is a risk factor of hypertension. And as well we know, many experts have confirmed that chronic high blood pressure is the major trigger factor behind a blocked artery of the brain (the key of why stroke can occur).
It is clear that the balance of sodium in the blood stream and body’s cells is very crucial to help maintain and keep your resting blood pressure normal (lower than 120/80 mm Hg).
And potassium with magnesium (another essential mineral you should not forget to improve your blood pressure) can help remove excess sodium in cells of the body.
Too much sodium in the body is bad for your blood pressure (either for your systolic or diastolic pressure).
Because sodium can make your body retain more water which means will add more volume of blood that flow through your arteries and veins (the major kinds of your blood vessels)! And this can increase the force of the blood against the blood vessel walls.
Additionally, systolic pressure is commonly used to call the top number of your blood pressure, because it describes the pressure that pushes your blood vessels when your heart is contracting. And diastolic pressure, it is typically the bottom number of your blood pressure because it points to your blood pressure when your heart is not contracting or ‘between beats’.
Combine it with other appropriate steps and lifestyle approaches!
If your goal is for stroke prevention, you should not only rely on dietary potassium.
Getting plenty of this mineral from your diet can be almost useless if you still have lots of changeable risk factors of stroke or if not followed with other appropriate steps for stroke prevention.
