NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Nov 10 - In a multi-ethnic population-based cohort of 3,303 adults, half of whom were African American, a low urinary potassium level correlated with high blood pressure, independent of sodium intake and cardiovascular risk factors.
This observation "supports the hypothesis that dietary potassium deficiency plays an important role in the development of high blood pressure," Dr. Susan Hedayati, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, told Reuters Health.
"The association was stronger in African Americans than non-African Americans, suggesting that there may be racial differences in the pathogenesis of hypertension as it relates to dietary potassium intake," added Dr. Hedayati, who reported the findings over the weekend at the American Society of Nephrology's annual meeting in Philadelphia.
In the cohort, the prevalence of hypertension was 36%. Hypertensive subjects were older, had a higher body mass index, lower glomerular filtration rate, and lower urine potassium than normotensive subjects, and a greater proportion was African American.
According to Dr. Hedayati, the potassium level in urine samples was strongly related to blood pressure. "The lower the potassium in the urine, hence the lower the potassium in the diet, the higher the blood pressure," she noted in a written statement. "This effect was even stronger than the effect of sodium on blood pressure."
"There has been a lot of publicity about lowering salt or sodium in the diet to lower blood pressure, but not enough on increasing dietary potassium," Dr. Hedayati added.
She also mentioned that Dr. Chou-Long Huang, one of the co-investigators on the study, has shown recently that potassium deficiency increases the expression of a gene called WNK1 in animal models. "We are currently doing studies to see if this gene is responsible for the mechanism of potassium deficiency causing hypertension in humans," Dr. Hedayati said.
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