Potassium reduces cerebral hemorrhage and death rate in hypertensive rats, even when blood pressure is not lowered.

In a study of the effects of K+ in stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive rats, adding K+ to normal chow was found to reduce the mortality from 83% to 2%, a 98% reduction. An 86% reduction in mortality occurred even when blood pressure was virtually equal in the two stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive groups being compared. Dietary K+ supplements also reduced mortality in hypertensive Dahl salt-sensitive rats from 55% to 4%, a 93% reduction. There was an 87% reduction in mortality even when blood pressure was equal in the Dahl salt-sensitive groups being compared. The added dietary K+ decreased blood pressure moderately in stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive rats and modestly in Dahl salt-sensitive rats, which probably contributed to the reduced death rate. More importantly, however, the added K+ seemed to prevent severe lesions in cerebral arteries and deaths even when blood pressure lowering was eliminated as a protective factor. In another group of stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive rats, there was a 40% incidence of cerebral hemorrhage in surviving rats not receiving K+ supplements and no incidence of cerebral hemorrhage in similar surviving rats receiving K+ supplements, which suggests that K+ supplements confer protection against brain hemorrhage.