(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Getting enough potassium may be even more important than lowering sodium for maintaining a healthy blood pressure -- especially for African Americans.

"There has been a lot of publicity about lowering salt or sodium in the diet in order to lower blood pressure, but not enough on increasing dietary potassium," the study's lead author Susan Hedayati, M.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, was quoted as saying.

Researchers analyzed data from 3,300 subject from the Dallas Heart Study, about half of whom were African American. The results showed the amount of potassium in urine samples was strongly related to blood pressure. The lower the levels of potassium in the urine, the higher the blood pressure.

The relationship between low potassium and high blood pressure remained significant even when other risk factors like age, race, high cholesterol, diabetes and smoking were taken into account.

SOURCE: American Society of Nephrology's 41st Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in Philadelphia, Pa. Nov. 4-9, 2008

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