Banana Health Benefits

New research from the British Medical Journal recommends the following diet tweak: increase potassium by eating more bananas and vegetables and cut down on salt to reduce blood pressure and risk of stroke.

One study review found that consuming an extra two or three servings of fruits or vegetables per day would do the trick. The researchers added that a combination of increased potassium and reduced salt had a bigger effect than changing just one of these factors alone.

Scientists from the UN World Food Programme, Imperial College London and Warwick Medical School, among others, looked at 22 controlled trials and another 11 studies involving more than 128,000 subjects.

Potassium-rich foods include vegetables, nuts and seeds, milk, fish, chicken and bread.

The Mayo Clinic reports that most adults need 4,700 mg of potassium a day, but that is not always an easy feat, since you'd need to eat 11 bananas a day to meet those requirements. However, a healthy diet packed with fruits and vegetables should provide ample levels of this important nutrient, they add.

A baked potato with the skin has 1,081 mg of potassium, while just one cup of cooked spinach has 839 mg.

A separate study on salt intake, led by researchers at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary, University of London, analyzed the results of 34 previous trials involving more than 3,000 people. Results found that modestly cutting your salt intake for four or more weeks promoted significant drops in blood pressure in adults with both high and normal blood pressure.