Best Potassium Supplement For High Blood Pressure
Best Potassium Supplement For High Blood Pressure
After tracking my diet for a month and finding I was getting around 1/4 of the recommended daily amount of potassium, I started taking a potassium supplement and within a day, I saw a significant drop in my blood pressure.
Most people don't get anywhere close to the 5000mg that is now recommended daily.
To put that into context, you'd have to eat around 5 whole, medium sized avocados or 6 medium sized bananas... every day.
I did increase potassium rich foods I eat, like avocados, pistachios and kimchi but you may not like these foods, or eating a lot of expensive avocados and pistachios may not be in your budget.
That's where supplements can help you reach your daily requirement.
Talk to your doctor before taking any health supplement. If you have any kidney dysfunction issues or take certain medications, you might already have high potassium levels in your blood which, if too high, can be dangerous.
Our Top Pick
NOW Supplements, Potassium Gluconate
There really isn't a lot to a potassium gluconate supplement so we recommend using an inexpesive version from a well established brand like NOW Supplements. More expensive versions won't give you any added benefits.
There are multiple forms of potassium bound to various other compounds, each has some different effects on the body but they all provide useful potassium.
If your only goal is to increase potassium to lower your high blood pressure, potassium gluconate is generally considered the best form of potassium as you won't get other side effects which you may not need (increased urination and lower uric acid from potassium citrate for example).
NOW Supplements potassium gluconate supplement provides 250 tablets for around $13 which is a good value.
Keep in mind that by law in the US, each tablet is only allowed to provide 2% of your recommended daily allowance of potassium, so depending on how much you get from your diet, you may need to take several tables at several times each day.
How Does Potassium Help With High Blood Pressure?
Potassium competes for sodium in the body. More potassium intake causes the body to expel more sodium. If you consume too much sodium in your diet, it can lead to increased blood pressure.
By causing the kidneys to expel additional sodium, potassium can help lower blood pressure through lowering the amount of sodium in the blood.
But potassium also acts as a vasodilator, which means it causes surrounding muscles around arteries and blood vessels to relax, allowing the vessels to dilate and increase blood flow which also helps to regulate and lower high blood pressure.
While various sources say potassium supplementation lowering blood pressure through vasodilation can take around 4 weeks of supplementation, this greatly depends on how lower your potassium intake is from your diet, how much you supplement and other individual factors.
I know that when I check my blood pressure before and after supplementing with a significant amount of potassium, I can see significant drop in blood pressure within hours, even though I've had little to no sodium recently and don't consume a large amount of it in general.
However, this is just my experience and they may not be the same for someone else.
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