Potassium Conspiracy..

Potassium is absolutely essential for our health, yet it can be hard to get in the diet, and most Americans are deficient in it. Then why haven't I been able to find ANY potassium supplements sold anywhere higher than 3 % of the RDA? It takes 3-4 grams a day to reach the RDA, so why aren't there any potassium supplements?

Vegetables have the most potassium as opposed to meats, yet it takes a lot of veggies to get the RDA of potassium. Anyone want to eat 9-10 bananas a day? How expensive is that? 4-5 potatoes a day? That's a lot of starch.

Beet greens are awesome but they're hard to find and expensive. Potassium rich foods are expensive. Want to eat 2 cans of tomato paste a day? yuck. Lots of bean? Soy beans have the most, but soy is no good for you unless fermented. Next is lima beans, and then white beans. Mung beans, lentils. But you'd have to eat 1 cup of raw white beans a day (which makes lots cooked) unless you can sprout them.

[edit on 27-5-2010 by The Quiet Storm]

reply to post by The Quiet Storm


it comes in cereals too if you look on the ingredients

buy potassium supplements you can get that from any health food shops



[edit on 27/5/2010 by loner007]

I buy and take potassium supplements.

Line 2.

Isn't Potasium kind of dangerous for the heart as in can cause imbalances which can cause a heart attack? I don't know. However, I am in BP meds and a Diuretic (water pill) which can cause depletion of Potassium which is critical if it happens. I have to have blood work once in a while to make sure the Potassium is at the right levels. I think bananas are rich in potassium. But to be taking supplementss is something I have never done and must get it through my regular diet. It has always been in the normal range for me.
This link tells all about Potassium in Humans.
www.buzzle.com...
Above link says:
In order to avoid Hypokalemia, you should prefer balanced diet in your daily meal. Include food high in Potassium: Orange, banana, potato, tomato, watermelon, beans, some type of cereals, dried fruits such as peaches, dates, apricots, raisins etc., meat, grapes, milk, egg-yogurt, spinach etc.

If you live out on the land, and have your own well, just try getting the potassium substitute for standard sodium water softener. And when you do find it, the price has sky-rocketed in the past couple of years. Hmmm. Maybe there is a potassium conspiracy!

JR MacBeth

To all the people who said to take supplements: I already said it's hard to get potassium through supplements which only have an RDA of 3%. Eating 10 bananas a day is also quite a lot. In actuality bananas are not the richest in potassium.

Currently according to my findings the foods richest in potassium are potatoes, tomato paste (u can make a juice out of it), beet greens, white beans, lima beans, and soy beans (which is no good). You still have to eat quite a bit of them too.

And potassium rich foods are usually expensive too.

Eat a banana....

A hand of 6 or 7 bananas is like $1.50

reply to post by TV_Nation


that's not too bad. I thought they were more expensive...

reply to post by The Quiet Storm


thats a bit out there brother...

Just do a quick search on foods that contain potassium it really is not hard to hit your daily limit.

Most fruits/vegetables have potassium

Fruit juices and milk have a good amount also.

V8 juice will give you 30% of your daily amount in one 6oz glass.

There is no conspiracy, if you eat a halfway decent diet you will be fine.

The reason why you can't find a supp that will fill that 100% is because a pill like that would literally kill you.

1 to 2 teaspoons of potassium will stop your heart dead in its tracks. There was a body builder who took high doses of potassium like that and he went into a coma and died.

Just eat a healthy well rounded diet.

reply to post by The Quiet Storm


Try eating potaoes. Or bananas, wow, lots of potassium in those. Tomatoes, cantaloupes and brocolli. I cannot eat much of those items.

They are chock full of potassium. So much so, that if I eat too much, and I mean very little, my heart could go balowwwwwwwwweyyyyy!

But that's just me. I have kidney failure once again. And I can't get that potassium out of my body quick enough.

For those who have too much potassium, well, and if you like taters, cut the taters very thin, rinse them off, then soak them or a day in water, sitting in your fridge, then rinse them off again and soak them for another day. You can then eat that little bit of taters. I don't suggest you do this more than once a week, though. You suffer from kidney failure? More than once a week of this can really destroy your body.

Meanwhile, I have seen high strength potassium tablets for sale in the local health food store near me.

Meanwhile, the 5 foods I mentioned earlier are of my most favorites. Heh. And isn't God a funny guy? Heh. What a joker! Creates a disease that then causes you to give up favorite things? lol I appreciate God's sense of humor.

DO NOT MESS WITH POTASSIUM…
You can easily mess up your heart and give yourself a heart attack….

I once made the mistake of taking extra potassium vitamins on top of my normal once a day vitamin, and the result was almost immediate chest pain and palpitations. Unless your physician tells you to take a potassium supplement, I would highly recommend that you leave it alone. You get enough potassium from your normal diet and a daily multi-vitamin.

Potassium is used in capital punishment via Leathal Injection:

Potassium chloride
Potassium is an electrolyte, 98% of which is intracellular. The 2% remaining outside of the cell has great implications for cells that generate action potentials. Doctors prescribe potassium for patients when there is insufficient potassium, called hypokalemia, in the blood. The potassium can be given orally, which is the safest route; or it can be given intravenously, in which case there are strict rules and hospital protocols on the rate at which it is given.
The usual intravenous dose is 10-20 mEq per hour and it is given slowly since it takes time for the electrolyte to equilibrate into the cells. When used in state-sanctioned lethal injection, bolus potassium injection affects the electrical conduction of heart muscle. Elevated potassium, or hyperkalemia, causes the resting electrical potential of the heart muscle cells to be higher than normal. Without a negative resting potential, cardiac cells cannot generate impulses that lead to contraction.
Depolarizing the muscle cell inhibits its ability to fire by reducing the available number of sodium channels (they are placed in an inactivated state). ECG changes include faster repolarization (peaked T-waves), PR interval prolongation, widening of the QRS, and eventual sine-wave formation and asystole. The heart eventually stops in asystole. Cases of patients dying from hyperkalemia (usually secondary to renal failure) are well known in the medical community, where patients have been known to die very rapidly, having previously seemed to be normal.

reply to post by TV_Nation


Just to add to this. Citrus fruits. Lots of potassium in those. Thank goodness I don't like citrus fruits. I would probably go crazy, what with the no taters and bananas and all.

Originally posted by kyred
reply to post by TV_Nation

 

Just to add to this. Citrus fruits. Lots of potassium in those. Thank goodness I don't like citrus fruits. I would probably go crazy, what with the no taters and bananas and all.

You are misunderstanding what some of us are trying to say.

Do some research on potassium supplements before you act like eating foods high in potassium is a bad thing.

The form of potassium that is used in supplements is very volatile towards your heart and your stomach.

There is nothing wrong with getting NATURAL forms of potassium in your diet.

As noted above, one of the reasons potassium supplements are so small, is that for some reason, our bodies cannot handle it in that form and too much can cause some heart issues in higher doses. I think it slows it down (but not sure). The level is 99 mg per dose, I think. (although the listed mass may change depending on the elemental potassium content in the supplement compound). The substance amount is set by the government; but not a bad thing.

The odd part is that our bodies do not have this issue when the potassium is in food. So a banana or potato will give you more potassium than a pill can legally ever do. And it is less expensive.

Also it is the ratio between potassium and sodium that is out of whack. Sodium is so very prevalent in our foods making it easy for that ratio to go astray. Cutting back on sodium is a good tactic to take here, while examining your potassium intake.

Also if interested, the usda does have a downloadable database that lists every macro nutrient, vitamin, mineral, etc for about 7500 food items.
They use 100g sample sizes, though...

the top ranking food there for potassium is cream of tartar with 16500 MG per 100g.. Not very appealing.. .but only 52 mg (edit: unit error) of sodium.

the 1st edible item on the list sorted by amount of potassium is oriental radishes at 3494mg per 100g.

the data is in access and ascii format at:
www.ars.usda.gov...

Edit: also in excel format.


[edit on 27-5-2010 by catlantis]

[edit on 27-5-2010 by catlantis]

[edit on 27-5-2010 by catlantis]

Originally posted by catlantis
As noted above, one of the reasons potassium supplements are so small, is that for some reason, our bodies cannot handle it in that form and too much can cause some heart issues in higher doses. I think it slows it down (but not sure).

Your heart is a big muscle; it can cramp, or fail to contract at all. All muscles work via electrical contraction (polarization/de polarization), which is controlled by your bodies electrolyte balance:

In physiology, the primary ions of electrolytes are sodium(Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), chloride (Cl−), hydrogen phosphate (HPO42−), and hydrogen carbonate (HCO3−). The electric charge symbols of plus (+) and minus (−) indicate that the substance in question is ionic in nature and has an imbalanced distribution of electrons, which is the result of chemical dissociation.

Throwing any of those too far out of whack and you risk having your heart go into an arrhythmia (cramp), or asystole (fail to contract). Your body protects this from occurring by automatically monitoring the balance of your electrolyte levels, and giving you cravings for certain things when any one of them is short. So for example if you get low on water, you’ll get thirsty, sweat too much and later you might crave something salty:

All known higher lifeforms require a subtle and complex electrolyte balance between the intracellular and extracellular milieu. In particular, the maintenance of precise osmotic gradients of electrolytes is important. Such gradients affect and regulate the hydration of the body, blood pH, and are critical for nerve and muscle function. Various mechanisms exist in living species that keep the concentrations of different electrolytes under tight control.

Recently there was this story of a woman in a contest who forced herself to drink so much water she threw off her electrolytes and died from it:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A woman who competed in a radio station’s contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner’s office said Saturday.
Jennifer Strange, 28, was found dead Friday in her suburban Rancho Cordova home hours after taking part in the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest in which KDND 107.9 promised a Nintendo Wii video game system for the winner.
“She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad,” said Laura Rios, one of Strange’s co-workers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento. “She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her.”

Not something to mess with unless you have a Doctors supervision.

The real conspiracy in food is high fructose corn syrup...
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score another point for hemp.

ill let you guys do the research

easiest way to stay healthy

Recently there was this story of a woman in a contest who forced herself to drink so much water she threw off her electrolytes and died from it:

This issue also comes up in cycling.. too much water, too long a ride... add some heat... and you got a problem. Electrolytes .. yup, very important.

I remember in chemistry discussing the possibility of too much water actually over riding the bodies buffer and causing acidosis, too. Yuck. (water being just slightly acidic not not really absolute pH 7).

Have you checked your potassuim level intake through food? It is pretty hard to get those daily numbers past a couple grams a day. Sodium, on the other hand, is so very easy to go over board on.
When I did the check it was a real eye opener, that ratio!

But yeah, stay away from the supplements.

[edit on 28-5-2010 by catlantis]