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Benefits of Potassium

Detailed Health Benefits of Potassium

Most benefits of potassium are related to brain and nervous system functions and maintaining osmotic balance between our cells and interstitial fluids. Potassium is also essential to all animal cells due to its role in the Na-K pump. If you are deficient in potassium you are a risk for a possible fatal condition called hypokalemia. This is typically a result of prolonged diarrhea or vomiting. Some symptoms to watch out for if you think you might be potassium deficient are weakness, decreased reflex, and in severe cases respiratory parallelization and irregular heart beat.

A diet that will include high amounts of potassium include oranges, potatoes, broccoli, brown rice, and garlic. However, most fruits and vegetables will contain appreciable amounts of potassium. In spite of how common potassium is most people are technically deficient in it. Combined with thiamine deficiency this can result in heart disease. Proper potassium intake has been shown to reduce hypertension (blood pressure) and occurrence of stroke. The recommended amount of potassium to be consumed every day is 4,000mg but this is debated and might technically be lower. It is argued that most people aren’t actually deficient but rather our understanding of what an adequate amount of potassium should be is wrong.

The benefits of potassium clearly outweigh the risks as the only adverse side effect results from an overdose much larger than any person could consume even accidentally. For example, supplements sold in the US contain no more than 99mg of potassium which means you would need to consume around 180 of them to suffer adverse effects. However, people not used to high amounts of potassium could suffer negative side effects at lower doses than 18 grams. If you are considering a diet high in potassium in addition to supplements you might want to gradually increase your intake over the course of a week or two but this is just my opinion.