A new study funded by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education, and published in Nutrients investigated the effect of increased dietary potassium from a whole food source–baked/boiled potatoes and baked French fries–or a potassium supplement on blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease risk factors compared to a ‘typical American’ control diet (lower potassium intake) among 30 pre-hypertensive to hypertensive men and women. Results showed that including baked/boiled potato consumption as part of a typical American diet had the greatest benefit on reducing sodium retention, even more than the supplement, and resulted in a greater systolic blood pressure reduction compared to the control diet.
Furthermore, despite commonly held misbeliefs about French fries and their role in heart-healthy lifestyles, the authors observed that a 330-calorie serving of baked French fries, when eaten as part of a typical American diet, had no adverse effect on blood pressure or blood vessel function.
“While significant emphasis is often placed on reducing dietary sodium intakes to better control for blood pressure and cardiovascular disease risk, that’s only half of the story,” said Connie Weaver, PhD, the primary investigator. “Potassium plays just as an important role, and perhaps the ratio of potassium to sodium is most important in the context of the entire food matrix, as the potato meal resulted in a greater reduction of sodium retention than the potassium supplement alone.”
Evidence on the effect of increased dietary potassium on blood pressure from clinical trials is extremely limited, and this is one of the first known controlled feeding interventions investigating dietary potassium as the primary variable of interest.
“It’s important to establish clinical trials that follow observational research to establish a causal link between diet and health,” notes Weaver. “For example, in this clinical study baked French fries had a null effect on blood pressure, which counters observational findings, at least in the short term, and helps to prioritize the importance of focusing on a total diet approach for maintaining health versus one that overemphasizes avoidance of any single food or food group.”
