Adequacy of Potassium Intake for Blood Pressure Control in the Daily Diet of Hypertensive Elderly by Consumption Combination of Vegetable and Fruit Juices

Abstract

Elderly is an age group that is very susceptible to suffering hypertension. In addition to
taking medication, blood pressure can be controlled by managing diet by maintaining a
balance of daily potassium and sodium intake. Some fruits and vegetables that are known to
contain high potassium include mustard greens, tomatoes and ambon bananas. This study
aims to see the effectiveness of controlling blood pressure in hypertensive elderly with the
addition of daily potassium intake in the form of a combination of vegetable and fruit juices.
This research method is a quasi-experimental. The total sample in this study was 81 elderly
people out of a 108 total population of with purposive sampling techniques.The intervention
provided was to complement the standard diet for the elderly at the TresnaWerdha Budi
Sejahtera Social Institution Banjarbaru by adding a combination of vegetable and fruit juices
that contain high potassium. Each glass of combination juice is 200 ml with a composition
consisting of 140 ml of vegetables & fruit (tomatoes, mustard greens and Ambon bananas),
50 ml of water, 5 ml of honey and 5 ml of lime juice as a fresh taste and aroma enhancer. The
subjects blood pressure was measured twice a day, before and after the intervention with an
interval of 6 hours. This blood pressure measurement was carried out for 3 days with a day's
break in each treatment. Each subject was controlled with the same and measured food
intake and continued to take anti-hypertensive drugs that had been prescribed from the social
care clinic. Intake of sodium and potassium was calculated based on the average planning
section of the social care provider with a menu cycle of 10 days Interpretation of treatment
effect is known by looking at fluctuations in blood pressure measurement results before and
after treatment. Measurement of blood pressure in the elderly was carried out using a digital
sphygmomanometer brand Omron (clinically validated ESH control) produced in Japan with
an accuracy value of 1 mmHg. For the analysis, the tests used are t-test dependent. This data
analysis was performed using SPSS statistical software. The results showed that giving a
glass of mixed fruit and vegetable juice in the daily diet of hypertensive elderly contributed
an additional 518.5 mg of potassium intake with an average decrease in blood pressure
before and after the intervention of 9.44 mmHg. Further analysis showed that there was a
significant difference in mean systolic blood pressure before and after the intervention (p
value <0.001).