Research
Mixed
A higher sodium-potassium ratio is significantly associated with increased risk of all-cause, cardiovascular, and ischemic heart disease mortality in US adults.
To lower your risk of death from heart disease, focus on your sodium-to-potassium ratio, not just sodium. Reduce processed foods (high sodium) and increase fruits, vegetables, and dairy (high potassium). This balance is more critical than sodium reduction alone.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Our findings suggest that a higher sodium-potassium ratio is associated with significantly increased risk of CVD and all-cause mortality, and higher sodium intake is associated with increased total mortality in the general US population.
Why this rating
Large prospective cohort (n=12,267), long follow-up (14.8 years), nationally representative, adjusted for many confounders, but observational design limits causal inference.
Source
Sodium and Potassium Intake and Mortality Among US Adults
Quanhe Yang · Archives of Internal Medicine · 2011
DOI 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.257
cohort · n=12267Cited 428×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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