The researchers, accompanied by Iranian-national Dr. Yasmin Mossavar Rahmani, shows that pregnant women who include potassium-rich foods in their diet show lower tendency to have heart or brain strokes.
Formerly, it had been known that potassium lowers blood pressure, but it was unknown whether it influenced the stroke risk.
"Previous studies have shown that potassium consumption may lower blood pressure. But whether potassium intake could prevent stroke or death wasn’t clear,” said Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, Ph.D., study senior author and distinguished university professor emerita, department of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY.
"Our findings give women another reason to eat their fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are good sources of potassium, and potassium not only lowers postmenopausal women’s risk of stroke, but also death.”
The researchers in this study used a sample group of 90 thousand women aging between 50 and 79 and made their observations during a course of 11 years.
The results have been published in the American Heart Association’s journal under the title "Potassium-rich foods cut stroke, death risks among older women”.