People who eat more potassium-rich foods like bananas and spinach tend to have a 24% lower chance of having a stroke for the first time, but we can’t say for sure that potassium is the reason why.

If you eat a little more potassium-rich food each day—like bananas or spinach—you might lower your risk of stroke and reduce your blood pressure a bit, even if you don’t change how much salt you eat.

Eating the right amount of potassium—between 90 and 120 millimoles a day—seems to lower your blood pressure the most and cut your risk of stroke the most; eating more than that doesn’t help any further.

For people who’ve had a stroke before, using a special salt that has less sodium and more potassium doesn’t raise their risk of having too much potassium in their blood — the numbers show it’s basically the same as regular salt.

Eating more potassium-rich foods won’t hurt your heart health by messing with your cholesterol, stress hormones, or kidney function — so it’s probably safe if you’re trying to lower your risk of heart problems.

Eating more potassium-rich foods like bananas, spinach, and potatoes is linked to a lower risk of heart problems.