Prof Tim Spector

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2,014 appearances 16 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 4d ago

Prof Tim Spector’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 16 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 4.

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ZOE Science & Nutrition · Most replayed moment: Blood pressure: the silent risk you shouldn’t ignore | Prof Tim Spector · 30 Jun 2026 podcast

And I don't think there's any harm in telling everybody who's worried about their blood pressure to avoid those kinds of foods.

because even if it doesn't dramatically reduce your blood pressure, if you're not particularly salt sensitive, you get so much other benefits from not having those kinds of foods anyway.

So I think everyone should be doing that.

The second thing you can do is if you do find yourself adding a lot of table salt to your food, you're someone who likes that, you might want to switch to a different type of salt called potassium chloride.

So this is sometimes labeled as low salt alternatives.

So salt has the chemical formula sodium chloride, and these low salts are potassium chloride, and they basically mix the sodium chloride with potassium chloride to give you a similar taste, but much less of the sodium, more of the potassium.

And when they've done randomized clinical trials of this,

they show that if you switch this around and you're not having all the other sort of junk foods we talked about, you can reduce your blood pressure by about three to 4%.

So more than just reducing salt on its own.

So that's a pretty good tip.

The only problem is for many people, they have a rather metallic taste and they don't like it, but this is what manufacturers should be doing.

They should be putting much more potassium

than sodium into these pre-packaged foods that would really help that make them less harmful for us the other big thing is is realizing that just by increasing your potassium level you will be improving your blood pressure reducing it and the best way to improve your your potassium level is to eat more varied plants

I'm not into superfoods.

I don't think people should be eating tons of kiwi fruit necessarily, but that's a good example of one that is full of potassium.

But fruits and vegetables in their natural form are fantastic sources of potassium that we should all be eating more of and less salty things and just change that ratio.

And the more you do that, the more you'll be able to improve your blood pressure naturally, even before you're going on to blood pressure medications.

And they can also enhance blood pressure medication.

So it's not either or.

I think even if you're on a blood pressure medication, the more you can help it with diet,

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