A group of international health experts is urging doctors and governments to recommend a simple but powerful change—use potassium-enriched salt instead of regular table salt.
This small switch could help fight high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, which affects over a billion people worldwide and leads to millions of deaths each year.
High blood pressure is often caused by eating too much sodium, which is found in regular salt. At the same time, most people don’t eat enough potassium, a mineral that helps lower blood pressure. Too much sodium and too little potassium in the diet is a dangerous mix that increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and even early death.
Regular salt contains only sodium. But potassium-enriched salt replaces part of that sodium with potassium. The great news is that it still tastes like normal salt. Unlike many low-sodium products that make food taste bland, potassium-enriched salt keeps the flavor people enjoy while offering more health benefits.
Experts say there’s strong evidence from many studies showing that using potassium-enriched salt lowers blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart disease. Still, many doctors and health systems haven’t adopted it because medical guidelines around the world don’t clearly recommend it.
To understand why, researchers from countries including the US, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and India reviewed 32 sets of guidelines for treating high blood pressure. These guidelines came from international, regional, and national health organizations.
Almost all of them said to eat less salt and more potassium-rich foods like fruits and vegetables. But only two—those from China and Europe—specifically recommended using potassium-enriched salt.
This is a problem, according to Dr. Tom Frieden, a global health leader. Over the last 30 years, the number of people with high blood pressure has doubled to 1.3 billion. Each year, over 10 million people die from problems linked to high blood pressure, many of them due to high salt intake.
Dr. Frieden believes that switching to potassium-enriched salt could save millions of lives and should be made widely available—not just in hospitals but also in grocery stores, restaurants, and kitchens at home.
Some people worry that potassium-enriched salt might not be safe for those with serious kidney disease. These patients need to avoid extra potassium because their kidneys cannot remove it from the body.
However, experts like Professor Bruce Neal from The George Institute say this group is small and already gets special advice from doctors to limit salt. In large studies, potassium-enriched salt has not caused serious problems because people with kidney issues were monitored and told not to use it.
The benefits are clear. Most people already eat too much salt—more than twice the amount recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). At the same time, their potassium intake is far too low.
WHO advises no more than 2 grams of sodium (about 5 grams of salt) per day and at least 3.5 grams of potassium. But on average, people eat over 10 grams of salt and just 2.3 grams of potassium each day.
To fix this, experts recommend adding potassium-enriched salt to national and global medical guidelines. People with high blood pressure should be encouraged to use it unless they have severe kidney problems.
For everyone else, potassium-enriched salt should become the normal choice in stores and restaurants—especially in areas where kidney disease is not common or is well managed by doctors.
The research also highlights how hard it is to change people’s eating habits. Many salt reduction plans fail because people don’t like the taste of food made with less salt.
But potassium-enriched salt solves this problem—it tastes the same and helps people stay healthy. That’s why scientists believe it could be one of the best ways to reduce strokes and heart attacks around the world.
There’s also a need for more public education. Many people haven’t heard of potassium-enriched salt, and even some doctors don’t talk about it because it’s not part of official advice. Making this type of salt easier to find and more affordable could have a huge impact on global health.
In short, switching to potassium-enriched salt is a simple and cheap way to help millions of people lower their blood pressure and stay healthier. Health organizations should act quickly to update their guidelines and help make this salt available to everyone.
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