Banana for High Blood Pressure

You may be surprised to hear doctors recommend eating banana for high blood pressure, but that may well become more and more common.

Bananas are packed with nutrients, especially potassium.

An average-sized banana contains more than 400 mg of potassium and only 1 mg of sodium.

Potassium is one of the most important electrolytes in the body, and works with sodium to help regulate heart function and fluid balance - a key factor in controlling blood pressure.

The effectiveness of potassium-rich foods, such as bananas, in lowering blood pressure and protecting against heart disease and strokes is well accepted and supported by considerable scientific evidence, so much so, that the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

In one landmark studies researchers tracked more than 40,000 American male health professionals over four years to determine the effects of diet on blood pressure.

Men who ate diets higher in potassium-rich foods had a substantially reduced risk of high blood pressure and stroke.


How much potassium is in a banana?

We are often asked 'how much potassium is in a banana?' Well, the average Chiquita banana contains about 422 mg of potassium (a little less than ½ a gram), making bananas a potassium superfruit—that's 13% of the daily-recommended amount of potassium from only one Chiquita banana!
And did you know that the potassium in bananas stimulates your muscles, nerves and brain cells, and as a bonus, can also help reduce blood pressure and risk of stroke.
Get the Potassium You Need – Recommended Amounts per Age Group
With all of the incredible benefits of potassium in bananas, it's no wonder the Chiquita banana is one of the first solid foods new moms feed their babies. The Food and Nutrition Center of the Institute of Medicine has recommended the following potassium amounts per day for infants, children and adults.

(1 banana = 0.422g of potassium)
Potassium for Infants:
      0-6 months: 0.4 grams a day (g/day)
  7-12 months: 0.7 g/day
Potassium for Children and Adolescents:
  1-3 years: 3.0 g/day
  4-8 years: 3.8 g/day
  9-13 years: 4.5 g/day
  14-18 years: 4.7 g/day
Potassium for Adults:
  Age 19 and older: 4.7 g/day

Get your banana potassium today by peeling and eating a Chiquita banana, and we invite you to browse our banana recipes for more ideas, and learn more banana nutrition facts.


RECENT STUDY ON BANANA FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

banana for high blood pressure
According to one study conducted more recently in India, researchers reported that blood pressure fell by 10% in people who ate two bananas daily for a week.

The study involved human volunteers at the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal in southern India.

It followed successful experiments in rats that showed that ripe and unripe bananas have compounds that can lower blood pressure.

Current drugs to lower hypertension, or high blood pressure, are called ACE-inhibitors. They are expensive and may produce side-effects such as dizziness.

One of the reasons for high blood pressure can be put down to overproduction of an enzyme (angiotensin converting enzyme or ACE) which causes angiotensin I to be converted into angiotensin II.

Angiotensin II is a hormone which causes constriction of blood vessels and an increase in blood pressure.

ACE inhibitors, as the word suggests, inhibit this conversion allowing the blood vessels to dilate causing a decrease in blood pressure.

The pharmaceutical trade in ACE-inhibitors is worth billions of dollars every year.

The Indian scientists report that natural compounds in bananas act in a manner similar to anti-hypertensive drugs in the Indian medical journal Current Science.

The Manipal team studied six popular banana varieties and found that all had ACE-inhibiting properties, though the ripened bananas had a stronger action than unripe ones.



HOW MANY BANANAS TO LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE?

just two bananas a day can help lower high blood pressure
According to scientists, two bananas a day can help control high blood pressure offering a cheap alternative to expensive drugs and without the their side-effects either.

The finding supports earlier research that potassium-rich food such as bananas could play a role in controlling blood pressure.

A 1997 study carried out at Johns Hopkins University in the US had suggested that people would have to eat five bananas a day to have half the effect of a blood pressure-controlling pill. But let's have a look at what a more recent study on banana for high blood pressure reveals.

Health

Two bananas a day keep blood pressure at bay

The health benefits of bananas are being investigated worldwide

Two bananas a day can help control high blood pressure, offering a cheap alternative to expensive drugs, according to scientists.
The finding supports earlier research that potassium-rich food such as bananas could play a role in controlling blood pressure.

A 1997 study suggested people would have to eat five bananas a day to have half the effect of a blood pressure-controlling pill.

Now researchers in India have reported that blood pressure fell by 10% in people who ate two bananas daily for a week.

Billion-dollar industry

The study involved human volunteers at the Kasturba medical college in Manipal in southern India.

It followed successful experiments in rats that showed that ripe and unripe bananas have compounds that can lower blood pressure.

Current drugs to lower hypertension, or high blood pressure, are called ACE-inhibitors. They are expensive and may produce side-effects such as dizziness.

They inhibit the action of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) which is responsible for forming a substance angiotensin-2 that constricts blood vessels and raises the pressure inside them.

The pharmaceutical trade in ACE-inhibitors is worth billions of dollars every year.

The Indian scientists report that natural compounds in bananas act in a manner similar to anti-hypertensive drugs in the Indian medical journal Current Science.

The Manipal team studied six popular banana varieties and found that all had ACE-inhibiting properties, though the ripened bananas had a stronger action than unripe ones.

Earlier studies

The 1997 study was carried out at Johns Hopkins University in the US.


Other foods may also have benefits
Its findings focussed on the role played by potassium, a mineral known as an electrolyte. Potassium works with sodium to help regulate fluid balance.

The study suggested that a daily intake of 2,300 mg of potassium - about five bananas - may lower blood pressure by about half as much as drugs can.

Last August, the American Heart Association advised that people with high blood pressure should eat a diet high in minerals and low in fat.

Researchers on its nutrition committee put a group of 459 people with mild hypertension on three different types of diet over an eight-week period.

The first diet was a control; the second was high in fruit and vegetable and the third was low in fat and high in fruit and vegetables. All three diets were low in salt.

The researchers found that a diet rich in fruit and vegetables alone can reduce diastolic pressure by 1.1mm of mercury.

Fruit and vegetables with a high level of naturally occurring electrolytes - which also include magnesium and calcium - include bananas, raisins, potatoes and dates.



Can potassium in bananas cut your stroke risk?


Bananas: one of your 5 a Day and a good source of potassium

‘More bananas and fewer crisps can help ward off strokes’, the Daily Mail reports, saying a study has found that people with high potassium intake have a 24% reduced risk of stroke. Researchers are also reported to say that lowering salt intake could increase benefits further.
Advice to switch from eating crisps to eating bananas is sound, but do we really need to boost our potassium intake?
The headlines stem from a well-conducted systematic review of global evidence on the effects of higher potassium concentration on cardiovascular health in healthy adults.
Good quality evidence suggests that boosting potassium intake to the recommended daily levels is associated with a decrease in blood pressure (by a few mmHg) compared to lower intakes. However, this effect was only found for people with high blood pressure.
Other evidence suggested that higher potassium intake could reduce stroke risk by 24%. However, it’s unwise to draw firm conclusions from these studies about how people’s health is affected by increased potassium intake.
A balanced diet featuring lots of fruit, vegetables and protein should give you all the potassium you need, without the need for supplements. In fact, too much potassium can be harmful, particularly for people with kidney disease or those already on certain blood pressure drugs.
Before you start scoffing bananas or popping potassium pills, it may be wise to talk about your blood preGP.

Where did the story come from?

The focus of this appraisal is on a study into potassium, carried out by researchers from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, Geneva, Switzerland and other institutions in the UK. Funding was provided by various sources, including WHO funds, the Kidney Evaluation Association Japan, and the governments of Japan and the Republic of Korea. The study was published in the peer-reviewed, British Medical Journal.

The news reports are generally representative of this research.

What kind of research was this?

Can reducing salt intake cut stroke risk?
Some media reports also discussed the benefits of reducing salt intake. This news is based on a systematic review, published simultaneously in the British Medical Journal. It investigated the effects of salt reduction on blood pressure, hormones and blood fats.
Researchers found that a reduction of salt intake by about 6g of salt per day for four or more weeks also gave a reduction in blood pressure in people who had both high and normal blood pressure to start with.
The research was a similarly well-conducted review and these findings reinforce existing advice on salt intake.
This was a systematic review that aimed to examine the global literature looking at the effects of potassium intake on health.
The researchers claim that historically, humans tended to have a much higher intake of potassium – above 200mmol/day. Now our intake is much less, due to diets high in processed foods and low in fresh fruit and vegetables, they say, with intake in many countries below the WHO-recommended daily intake of 70 to 80mmol/day.
Because previous studies have linked lower potassium intake to increased risk of high blood pressure and stroke, the researchers consider that increasing potassium intake may help to reduce people’s risk of such chronic conditions.
The researchers say that previous reviews have had inconsistent findings. The WHO initiated the current review to systematically gather the results of studies in healthy adults and children without illnesses that could compromise the body’s potassium balance. The WHO did this to inform future guidelines. The researchers wanted to identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) looking at:
how increased potassium intake affected blood pressure, death from any cause and cardiovascular disease in apparently healthy adults
how increased potassium intake affected blood pressure in apparently healthy children
how increased potassium intake affected blood lipid (fat) concentrations, kidney function and hormones released from the adrenal glands (such as adrenaline) in apparently healthy adults and children
what level of potassium intake would result in the maximum benefit for reducing blood pressure, and risk of death and cardiovascular diseases
whether the effects of increased potassium are affected by factors such as people’s health, diet, or by the type of intervention used to help them increase their potassium intake
If insufficient RCTs were identified, the researchers planned to include less robust study designs, including non-randomised trials and observational studies.
What did the research involve?

The researchers used systematic review methods recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration. They searched numerous electronic databases and manually searched reference lists of studies and reviews. They identified randomised and non-randomised trials which had allocated at least one group of participants to increased potassium intake (intervention) and one group to lower potassium intake (control) for at least four weeks. To be included in the analyses, trials had to have measured potassium from urine samples collected every 24-hours (which can be used to estimate potassium intake). The researchers excluded studies involving:

acutely ill people
HIV-positive people
people admitted to hospital

people whose urinary potassium excretion was impaired due to a medical condition or drug treatment
Researchers were looking for outcomes related to blood pressure, all-cause mortality, all cardiovascular disease, and specifically stroke and coronary heart disease. They also looked at potential adverse effects of changes in concentrations of blood fat (cholesterol and triglycerides), concentrations of catecholamine (hormones such as adrenaline produced by the adrenal glands at the top of the kidneys) and kidney function. In children, the researchers wanted to find out about blood pressure, blood fats or catecholamine concentrations.
The researchers assessed studies for quality and risk of bias. Where possible, they pooled the results in meta-analyses to estimate the effects of higher potassium intake compared to lower.

What were the basic results?

The researchers identified 37 relevant studies, 35 of which were included in the meta-analysis. Of these, 22 were RCTs of adults, 11 were cohort studies of adults, and one was an RCT of children and one a cohort study of children. Due to the limited search results for children, the researchers broadened their inclusion criteria and identified a further RCT, one non-randomised study, and one additional cohort study in children. The two randomised trials in children included a total of 250 boys and girls aged 13-15 years.
Results for adults
The 22 RCTs in adults included 1,606 participants (individual study size 12 to 353 people) and were conducted across countries worldwide. In 20 studies, participants were given potassium supplements (as the intervention), in one study, participants were given potassium supplements and dietary advice or education, and in two studies the intervention was dietary advice or education alone. The cohort studies in adults included 127,038 people.
Blood pressure readings explained
Blood pressure readings are given as two numbers: systolic blood pressure (the maximum pressure) and the diastolic blood pressure (minimum). These pressures are measured in mmHg (or millimeters of mercury).
The systolic reading is given first (or ‘over’) the diastolic reading. For example, if your GP measures your blood pressure, they may tell you it is 120/80mmHg – which is a ‘normal’ blood pressure reading.
High blood pressure is judged to be about 140/90mmHg.
The researchers found by pooling the results of the RCTs in adults (after excluding those with outlying results) that increased potassium intake reduced systolic blood pressure (the upper figure) by 3.49mmHg (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.82 to 5.15) and diastolic blood pressure (the lower figure) by 1.96mmHg (95% CI 0.86 to 3.06). However, when they carried out sub-group analyses according to baseline blood pressure, they found that these beneficial effects were seen in the 16 studies including adults with high blood pressure (hypertension) at baseline, but not in the three studies including people with normal blood pressure.
When looking at the specific potassium dose used, they found that greatest effect upon blood pressure was obtained when the potassium intervention was between 90 and 120mmol/day (which reduced systolic blood pressure by 7.16mmHg).
When looking at disease risk, they found that potassium intake had no significant effect on risk of any new cardiovascular disease in general, or of coronary heart disease. However, the pooled results of nine cohort studies found that higher intake significantly decreased risk of stroke by 24% (risk ratio 0.76, 95% CI 0.66 to 0.89).
Increased potassium intake had no significant adverse effects on kidney function, blood fats, or catecholamine concentrations in adults.
Results for children
In children, the three controlled trials and one cohort study found non-significant effects of potassium upon blood pressure.
How did the researchers interpret the results?

The researchers say there is high quality evidence that increased potassium intake reduces blood pressure in people with high blood pressure at baseline, without having detrimental effects upon blood fat concentrations, catecholamine concentrations, or kidney function in adults. Evidence from observational studies suggests higher potassium intake is associated with a 24% lower risk of stroke.
They conclude that increased potassium intake is ‘potentially beneficial’ to most people who have normal kidney function for the prevention and control of high blood pressure and stroke.
Conclusion

This is a well-conducted systematic review, in which researchers scanned the global literature to identify all relevant studies examining the effect of higher potassium concentration in adults and children upon blood pressure and other cardiovascular health outcomes. Previous studies in this area have given inconclusive results.
This review has found evidence that higher potassium intakes are associated with a decrease in blood pressure (on average about 2 to 4mmHg) when taken by people who have high blood pressure. However, it is not certain how beneficial these relatively small changes would be to people, as it is not possible to say if this would have brought the person’s blood pressure to within normal range, or reduced their risk of other adverse health outcomes.
The evidence for a 24% reduction in stroke risk with higher intake comes from nine observational studies, rather than RCTs, and as such this is lower quality evidence. As no significant benefits were found for cardiovascular disease as a whole, or heart disease specifically, it is difficult to firmly conclude what direct impact increased potassium has upon cardiovascular disease risk.
Can you have too much potassium?
It is important to be aware that too much potassium can be harmful, as it can cause gastrointestinal symptoms or have harmful effects upon the heart.
Older adults or people with kidney disease or those taking certain medications, including certain blood pressure medications and diuretics, may be at increased risk from high potassium intake.
Because of the limited number of studies in children found, this review can’t make any conclusions about the impact of increased potassium intake for children either.
Also, as the researchers importantly note, their results cannot be applied to people with impaired kidney function or who are taking medication that affects their ability to control potassium. Nor should the findings be applied to pregnant or breastfeeding women who have a slightly higher daily potassium requirement. The review is not able to say which specific type of potassium supplement may be beneficial. For example, some studies used potassium bicarbonate, others potassium chloride and others potassium citrate.
This study supports the recommended daily amount of potassium (3,500mg). People should be able to obtain all the daily potassium they need by eating a balanced diet with lots of fruit, vegetables and protein, without the need for supplements. For more information, read about the Eatwell plate.

Peel This Tropical Treat for Blood Pressure

Your blood pressure could be lower just by indulging more in this sweet tropical treat: bananas.

Cheap and plentiful year-round, bananas are bursting with potassium. And a review of several major studies suggests that people who add the potassium equivalent of an extra 1 1/2 to 2 bananas to their day could drop their blood pressure 2 to 3 points.

More Points for Potassium
Dropping BP by 2 or 3 points is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it's enough to lower stroke risk. In other research, people with the highest potassium intake levels cut their stroke risk by a whopping 38 percent compared with the people who got the least potassium. This magical mineral works by encouraging your kidneys to filter more pressure-boosting sodium out of your bloodstream. It also helps tiny blood vessels relax and makes pressure sensors in artery walls function more efficiently. (Here's another sweet treat that snares high blood pressure.)

Mass A-Peel
Aim for 3,000 milligrams a day of potassium to get optimal RealAge benefits. But don't rely on pills; they can be dangerous if you have kidney problems. Go with fruits and veggies instead -- not just bananas but prunes, watermelon, baked potatoes with the skin, mushrooms, tomatoes, and other produce, too. Produce will also give you a head start on these important blood pressure control strategies:

Slash the sodium. Fresh produce is naturally low in salt. And licking the salt habit can lower your blood pressure even if it's just a bit high. Here are ways to slash more salt.
Mine more minerals. Fruits and veggies pack not just potassium but calcium and magnesium as well, two additional pressure-pampering minerals. Get tips on sneaking more veggies into your diet.
Seek a sleeker you. Low-cal fruits and veggies can help you hit a healthy weight, which is important for your blood pressure. Use your mind to slim your waist.
Bananas aren't the only fruit with benefits. Get the good-for-you details on other healthy fruits.