Glossary: potassium

potassium

What is it?

This MINERAL, working in concert with SODIUM, maintains the body's fluid balance — a vital function. Potassium is also believed to catalyze CARBOHYDRATES and PROTEIN metabolism.

Deficiency Symptoms<

Anxiousness, drowsiness, weakness, nausea, irrational behavior, irregular heartbeat. Spectators are used to watching marathon runners swig cups of fluid on the run to help them replace bodily fluids lost through sweating. Actually, far less potassium is lost through sweat than through prolonged vomiting, diarrhea or diuretics used to treat hypertension.

Precautions

Potassium is sacrificed when grains are milled. It also leaches into cooking water if food is cut too fine and cooked too long, but recycling the "pot likker" salvages most of it. Because laxatives and diuretics both wash potassium from the body, they should be taken only as a physician directs. Some of the diuretics used to treat hypertension — hydrochlorothiazide and furosemide, to name two — deplete body potassium. Water is flushed out of the body along with potassium, thus blood volume is reduced as well as blood pressure. Anyone taking potassium-wasting diuretics must monitor his potassium intake carefully and make sure that the lost potassium is replaced. Drinking lots of orange juice, eating plenty of potatoes, bananas and other potassium-rich foods are good ways to go about it.

RDA for Potassium: Potassium is so widely distributed in food only general recommendations are given. For adults, 2,000 milligrams per day are the minimum. However, many nutritionists now recommend upping the daily quota to 3,500 milligrams to reduce the risk of high blood pressure.

Good Sources

Most fruits, vegetables, dairy products, fish, lean meats and poultry (bananas, cantaloupes, orange juice, baked potatoes and low-fat yogurt, in particular, are stellar sources).

Note: The less fat food contains, the richer it's likely to be in potassium.

Standard Process™ Supplements

Min-Tran ®, Organic Minerals