Reaching for a banana could do more than power your morning smoothie.
A new international study suggests that eating more potassium-rich foods could help lower the risk of dangerous heart problems.
The research, presented at a major heart conference in Madrid last month and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that people who boosted their potassium levels were less likely to be hospitalized with heart rhythm issues or heart failure or to die from related complications.
Researchers from Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark followed 1,200 patients at high risk for ventricular arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms) who already had tiny implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) in their chests.
The average age of the participants was 62 years old and 19.8% of them were women.
The participants were randomly assigned to a treatment intended to increase potassium levels, either by potassium supplementation, a medication called a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA), or both. They also received dietary guidance and standard care to reach high-to-normal levels.
A second group received only standard care.
Among the participants in the first group, around 23% experienced a medical event such as a dangerously fast heart rhythm, treatment by a defibrillator (either a shock or pacing), an unplanned hospital stay for heart rhythm problems or heart failure, or death from any cause.
In the standard care group, 29.2% experienced one of these medical events — a 6.5% difference.
Unplanned hospitalization lasting more than 24 hours and death specifically occurred in 29.5% of high-to-normal potassium group participants, compared to 33.2% in the standard-care control group.
Hospitalizations for hyperkalemia or hypokalemia, conditions where potassium levels are too high or too low, respectively, were similar for the two groups.
The researchers concluded that in patients with cardiovascular disease who had an ICD and were at high risk for ventricular arrhythmias, increasing plasma potassium levels led to a “significantly lower risk of appropriate ICD therapy, unplanned hospitalization for arrhythmia or heart failure, or death from any cause than standard care.”
Dr. Christian Jons from Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, presented the findings at the Madrid conference, according to a news release.
“There is some evidence from observational studies to suggest that low plasma potassium levels are associated with an increased risk of dangerous alterations in heart rhythms and that potassium levels in the upper normal level have protective effects,” he said.
Senior author Henning Bundgaard added that the treatment-induced increase in plasma potassium “significantly reduced the arrhythmia burden without increasing the combined risk of hyper- or hypokalemia.”
“The benefits occurred across cardiovascular disease types and regardless of the method used to increase potassium levels,” he went on.
“We believe the time is right to consider increasing potassium levels to the mid-to-high normal range as an inexpensive and widely available treatment strategy in patients with a broad spectrum of cardiovascular diseases associated with a high risk of ventricular arrhythmia.”