Potassium and Your Health

Photo by Ilo Frey: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ripe-bananas-2316466/

Potassium is the mineral that we have the highest daily need for. Intake recommendations vary and oddly enough, there is no official RDA for potassium from the Food and Nutrition Board (the government agency that sets RDAs for most nutrients). But the FDA recommends a daily intake for normal, healthy adults of 4700 mg (people with kidney disease usually need to keep their intake significantly lower).

Generally healthy people who eat a diet high in fresh vegetables and fruits will typically get adequate potassium from food alone. Those who don’t are at risk for potassium deficiency.

The signs and symptoms of possible potassium deficiency include:

• Physical weakness

• Mental fatigue and irritability

• Muscle cramps, twitches, and spasms

• Constipation and bloating

• Insomnia

• Heart palpitations and arrhythmias

• Edema and fluid retention

• Muscle aches and stiffness

• Kidney stones

• Numbness and tingling in the fingers and/or toes (primarily seen with relatively severe deficiency)

Of course, those symptoms just listed can be caused by a variety of other health issues as well, but if you do have any or all of those symptoms and no cause has been identified, having your potassium level tested would be a good idea. The problem is, it’s not unusual for doctors to run the WRONG test to evaluate for potassium deficiency!

The most common test used for potassium is a simple blood level. This is a useful and important test for detecting ELEVATED potassium, which can be caused by serious kidney issues, severe injuries and burns, and a few other conditions. Elevated potassium can be quite serious as it can cause a heart attack, so there is certainly a place for testing blood potassium levels.

But that place is NOT checking for potassium deficiency! Approximately 98% of your body’s potassium is contained inside you cells, not floating around free in your bloodstream. To evaluate for deficiency, you need a potassium RBC test (about $100, which is why it’s probably not done as a routine test), which measures the level of potassium inside your cells.

Besides the potassium RBC test, there is a quick self-test that can give you a reasonably good indication as to whether you need additional potassium.

If you are having significant fatigue / mental sluggishness / “brain fog”, try taking some liquid electrolyte drops (relatively inexpensive and usually available where nutritional supplements are sold). If you are potassium deficient, the electrolyte drops will usually improve your mental functioning and “wake you up” very quickly – within a few minutes or less. If this occurs, there’s a good chance that you would benefit from increasing your intake of potassium-rich foods, and/or do some daily supplementation.

So what foods are rich in potassium?

The classic potassium food is of course bananas, but there are actually foods higher in potassium per serving, and quite a number of foods that provide more potassium relative to sugar and calorie content than bananas. My guess is that bananas became known as “the potassium food” through marketing more than through science!

Among the better sources of potassium are:

• Avocados

• Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc.)

• Leafy greens

• Coconut water

• Citrus fruits

• Potatoes

• Pumpkin seeds

• Watermelon

• Sweet potatoes

• Clams

• Certain fish, including cod, halibut, salmon, and tuna

• Liver

• Certain nuts, such as Brazil, hazelnuts, and pecans

Bear in mind that potassium is a water-soluble nutrient and the body will quickly shed excess amounts of it that it doesn’t immediately need, so you need a good intake pretty much every day. In other words, eating a lot of potassium-rich foods one day a week is not going to cover you for the rest of the week.

Besides potassium-rich foods, there are both liquid and pill-form supplements. Although it’s unlikely that you would overdose on potassium if you are reasonably healthy and aren’t just going crazy with supplementation, be careful to follow the dosing recommendations on whatever supplements you might use.

One other simple way to increase your potassium intake if you salt your food is to use potassium salt instead of regular sodium salt. Salt made completely from potassium chloride has an odd taste to many people, so I suggest using Morton’ Lite Salt, which is approximately half sodium and half potassium salt, but tastes pretty much the same as regular sodium chloride table salt. Morton’s Lite Salt has about 350 mg of potassium per ¼ teaspoon – which is closing in on a medium sized banana that has about 420 mg. And if you salt your food, you get the additional potassium without really having to think about it.

I hope you found this helpful.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.