Increasing potassium intake to prevent kidney damage: a new population strategy?

Abstract

Reducing dietary sodium consumption and increasing potassium intake are effective approaches in reducing the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. Whether this is also true for chronic kidney disease (CKD) is still debated. Elfassy et al. have examined associations between urinary sodium and potassium excretion and the incidence of CKD in young, 30-year-old subjects followed for 20 years. Although they failed to find an association between sodium intake and CKD incidence, there was an inverse association between high potassium intake and the development of albuminuria.