A new study from UT Southwestern Medical Center has found that eating too many foods with phosphate additives—often found in packaged and processed foods—can raise your blood pressure.
The researchers discovered that this happens because phosphate affects how the brain controls your heart and blood vessels.
This new finding may help doctors treat people with high blood pressure caused by eating too many phosphate-rich foods.
Phosphate is a substance often added to processed meats, snacks, and ready-to-eat meals to keep them fresh or improve their taste. But many people in developed countries eat far more phosphate than is healthy.
This study found that high levels of phosphate in your diet can send signals to your brain that make your nervous system work too hard, which raises your blood pressure.
High blood pressure, also called hypertension, happens when the force of blood pushing against your arteries is too strong.
Nearly half of American adults have this condition, which raises the risk of serious health problems like heart attacks and strokes.
The research team studied two groups of rats. One group was fed a diet with a high level of phosphate (1.2%), while the other group received a normal amount (0.6%).
The scientists measured the rats’ blood pressure, nerve activity, and levels of a protein called FGF23, which increases when phosphate levels rise.
They found that the rats on the high phosphate diet had more FGF23 in their blood, spinal fluid, and brain. This protein was able to cross into the brain and affect areas that control blood pressure. As a result, these rats had higher blood pressure both when resting and when stressed—like during simulated exercise.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Han Kyul Kim, said this reveals a new way phosphate can raise blood pressure—through the brain. Dr. Kim and the team also found that a specific brain receptor called FGFR4 played a key role.
When they blocked this receptor during simulated exercise, the rats didn’t have the same spike in blood pressure, even on the high phosphate diet. Blocking a different receptor, FGFR1, did not help.
This suggests that FGFR4 could be a new target for treating high blood pressure caused by phosphate in the diet. The study also showed that FGFR4 activation led to more of a brain protein called calcineurin A, which might increase the brain’s activity in a way that makes blood pressure go up.
These results are important because they show how what we eat can affect not just our body but also how our brain controls our heart. The researchers believe that reducing phosphate in processed foods or finding ways to block FGFR4 might help prevent or treat high blood pressure in the future.
This study gives doctors and scientists a new way of thinking about hypertension and shows how food additives might be silently harming our health.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies about This alcohol treatment could help treat high blood pressure and How blood pressure changes with age.
For more about blood pressure, please read studies about Intensive blood pressure treatment for older adults may harm heart and kidneys and What you should know about high blood pressure medications.
The study is published in Circulation.
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