Amazing Health Benefits of Potassium - Food and Health

Health Benefits of Potassium

Potassium is a central mineral to the human body and its overall function it is critical to the electrical activity and pumping of heart muscle and is also important for skeletal muscle and smooth muscle eating and physical activity and digestion respectively well it sounds obvious the most common use of potassium supplementation or increasing your dietary intake is to treat low potassium certain medical conditions and medications can increase your potassium secretion and supplementation may be required to maintain normal levels some early research suggests that potassium consumption may play a role in the prevention of osteoporosis and help maintain healthy bones this is most notable and elderly women who are the highest risk more research is needed some studies have found that low potassium is linked to increased risk of hypertension or high blood pressure others have found that supplementation does slightly decrease blood pressure including a 1997 meta-analysis and certain hormones that help maintain blood pressure do regulate potassium so this makes sense but generally speaking physicians are not prescribing potassium for the purpose of treating blood pressure and more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn regarding using potassium to regulate blood pressure there's evidence suggesting that folks with low potassium or increased risk of stroke studies have shown that people with high dietary intake of potassium appear to have a reduced risk of stroke however this has not been replicated with supplemental potassium individuals with calcium based kidney stones have been found to

benefit from potassium supplementation this is because it decreases the excretion of calcium into your urinary tract which will go on to form the stones low potassium is termed hypokalemia symptoms include weak muscles of normal heart rhythms and elevated blood pressure risk factors include medications such as water pills or diuretics as well as laxatives prolonged vomiting or diarrhea and certain kidney disorders high potassium is termed hyperkalemia and does not typically present with any specific signs or symptoms but cause that normal and life-threatening heart rhythms causes include poor kidney function infection and medication such as potassium sparing water pills ACE inhibitors and ARBs so our sources generally speaking the best dietary sources of potassium include fruits juices vegetables dairy fish poultry nuts and seeds or basically everything the top 10 sources include sweet potato tomato paste beet greens white beans yogurt clams prune juice cherry juice blackstrap molasses and halibut and that is obtained from the USDA I've know bananas are famously a great source of potassium and they come in around number 20 on the topic list of dietary sources the recommended daily allowance according to the USDA in adults is four point seven grams per day this is true pregnant women and breastfeeding women needs slightly more so in summary we can say a few things about potassium it's critical for the function of heart skeletal and smooth muscle it may play a role lowering stroke risk blood pressure and kidney stones low and high potassium levels are serious and should be managed under the care of a physician the best dietary sources of potassium are almost everything and the recommended daily allowance is forty seven hundred grams or four point seven grams per day...