Potatoes are one of the most popular foods around the world. People eat them in many different ways—boiled, mashed, baked, or fried.
But in the past, some studies said that eating a lot of potatoes could be bad for your health. They linked potato eating to higher blood pressure and weight gain.
However, those older studies didn’t look closely at how the potatoes were cooked or what kinds of meals people were eating. That’s important because boiling a potato is very different from deep frying it.
Researchers at Imperial College London wanted to understand this better. They studied how eating different kinds of potatoes might affect blood pressure and body weight. They focused on 2,696 adults between the ages of 40 and 59.
These people were from the United States and the United Kingdom, and they were all part of a bigger health study called INTERMAP.
The scientists looked at what kind of potatoes the people ate and how often they ate them. They also studied their full diets to see how healthy their eating habits were overall.
Here’s what they found: eating potatoes that were boiled, mashed, baked, or included in a mix of other healthy foods didn’t seem to raise blood pressure or body fat. That’s good news for potato lovers.
But fried potatoes told a different story. In American women, eating more fried potatoes was linked to slightly higher blood pressure and a higher body mass index, or BMI, which is a measure of body fat. These effects were not seen in men.
The study also found that when fried potatoes were eaten as part of an unhealthy meal—such as one with a lot of fat, salt, or sugar—they were more likely to be linked to higher blood pressure in women. However, when the fried potatoes were part of a healthier meal, the effects were smaller or not seen at all.
This means that the problem might not be just the fried potatoes, but the overall quality of the meal they come with. It also shows that how we cook and eat our food really matters.
If you’re concerned about your blood pressure, you may also want to know that some studies suggest Vitamin C and certain herbal supplements can help lower it. Cutting back on added sugar and eating more healthy foods might also make a big difference.
There’s also interesting research on probiotics—these are the good bacteria found in foods like yogurt—which may help lower blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels.
The potato study was done by Ghadeer S Aljuraiban and her team, and the results were published in the journal Clinical Nutrition. Their research reminds us that not all potatoes are equal when it comes to our health. It’s not just what we eat, but how we cook and combine our food that can affect our bodies.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies about A common blood pressure medication could help you live longer and findings of 1 in 5 people with high blood pressure takes a medication that harms blood pressure.
For more informaiton about blood pressure, please read studies about Changing blood pressure readings is a hidden sign of heart disease and findings of Scientists shows switching blood pressure drugs may treat the condition better.
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