Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
In mice eating normal salt, too much potassium (over 1.75% of their diet) makes their blood pressure go up during active hours, especially at high potassium levels like 5%, because of increased activity of certain kidney channels.
Correlational
Eating more potassium-rich foods doesn't change how much salt is passed in urine or body weight for people with high blood pressure over a year.
Descriptive
For people with high blood pressure, eating more potassium-rich foods leads to higher potassium levels in their bodies after a year, as measured by food records and urine tests.
Causal
People with controlled high blood pressure who ate more potassium-rich foods experienced fewer side effects or discomfort after a year compared to those who kept their usual diet.
People with controlled high blood pressure who ate more potassium-rich foods were more likely to manage their condition with less than half their original medication dose after a year—81% compared to 29% in those who didn't change their diet.
For people with controlled high blood pressure, eating more potassium-rich foods lets them take much less blood pressure medicine after a year—only a quarter of what they started with, compared to 60% for those who didn't change their diet.
In female rats with high blood pressure, antioxidant drugs usually don't lower their blood pressure.
When given a drug called acetazolamide, Tempol lowers blood pressure in older female rats with high blood pressure.
Giving a common antioxidant drug called Tempol to older female rats with high blood pressure did not lower their blood pressure, whether they ate a low-salt or high-salt diet.
After eating a high-salt diet for several weeks, older female rats with high blood pressure had similar blood pressure levels as those on a low-salt diet, around 178 mm Hg in both groups.
In older female rats with high blood pressure, starting blood pressure was similar whether they ate a normal low-salt diet or a high-salt diet, with numbers around 174 and 168 mm Hg.
Exercise made a metabolic regulator in blood vessels 60% more active in obese mice compared to mice that didn't exercise.
Quantitative
Exercise boosted a key signaling protein in blood vessels by 37% in obese mice, which helps improve blood flow.
Exercise increased the activity of a protein that helps blood vessels relax by more than double in the blood vessels of obese mice compared to sedentary mice.
Exercise made a key metabolic regulator in the fat around blood vessels 2.45 times more active in obese mice compared to sedentary mice.
Exercise boosted levels of a protective anti-inflammatory protein in the blood vessels of obese mice by nearly five times compared to mice that didn't exercise.
Exercise reduced the levels of a key inflammatory protein in the blood vessels of obese mice by over 60% compared to mice that didn't exercise.
Even without the surrounding fat tissue, exercise helped obese mice's blood vessels relax 17% better when exposed to a chemical that promotes widening.
When obese mice exercised, their blood vessels relaxed 19% better in response to a chemical that normally makes them widen, especially when the surrounding fat tissue was present.
Exercise made the fat cells around the blood vessels in obese mice about 4.1% smaller than in mice that didn't exercise.
Obese mice that exercised on a treadmill for 8 weeks weighed about 22.6% less than obese mice that didn't exercise.
Higher depression levels in Ukrainian female students were strongly linked to higher emotional loneliness, moderately linked to general loneliness, and weakly linked to social loneliness.
Ukrainian female students reported feeling less emotionally lonely over time, with a small but statistically significant decrease from 2022 to 2024.
Nearly 30% of Ukrainian female students had thoughts of suicide in the past month, with secular students more likely to report this than religious students.