Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Potassium

Everybody knows we need potassium; not everybody knows why. In fact, there are a lot of things it does for us; we’ll let Harvard Health sum it up in few words:

❝Potassium is necessary for the normal functioning of all cells. It regulates the heartbeat, ensures proper function of the muscles and nerves, and is vital for synthesizing protein and metabolizing carbohydrates.❞

Read in full: Harvard Health | The Importance Of Potassium

However, we’re going to focus on one aspect of that:

When 0 K Is Not OK

Potassium (chemical symbol: K) helps regulate blood pressure by doing the opposite of what sodium does: high sodium intake increases blood volume and pressure by retaining fluid, while potassium promotes sodium excretion through urine, reducing fluid retention and lowering blood pressure.

Research has shown that increasing potassium intake can reduce systolic blood pressure by an average of 3.49 units, with even greater reductions (up to 7 units) at higher potassium intakes of 3,500–4,700 mg/day:

❝Increased potassium intake reduced systolic blood pressure by 3.49 (95% confidence interval 1.82 to 5.15) mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure by 1.96 (0.86 to 3.06) mm Hg in adults, an effect seen in people with hypertension but not in those without hypertension.

Systolic blood pressure was reduced by 7.16 (1.91 to 12.41) mm Hg when the higher potassium intake was 90-120 mmol/day, without any dose response.

Increased potassium intake had no significant adverse effect on renal function, blood lipids, or catecholamine concentrations in adults.

An inverse statistically significant association was seen between potassium intake and risk of incident stroke (risk ratio 0.76, 0.66 to 0.89).❞

Read in full: Effect of increased potassium intake on cardiovascular risk factors and disease: systematic review and meta-analyses

Note that the blood-pressure-lowering effect not being seen in people without hypertension is a good thing too; if your blood pressure is already healthy, you don’t want it to be lower!

For most people, though, the BP numbers could stand to be lower.

So, should I eat more bananas?

Potassium-rich foods include most fruit*, leafy greens, broccoli, lentils, and beans.

*because of some popular mentions in TV shows, people get hung up on bananas being a good source of potassium. Which they are, but they’re not even in the top 10 of fruits for potassium. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of fruits that have more potassium than bananas, portion for portion:

1. Honeydew melon
2. Papaya
3. Mango
4. Prunes
5. Figs
6. Dates
7. Nectarine
8. Cantaloupe melon
9. Kiwi
10. Orange

However, fruit is mostly water weight, and if we take the top-scorer from that list, the honeydew, we see that you’d need to eat 2kg of honeydew melon per day to get your ideal potassium needs met.

So, supplementation?

That’s probably a good idea for most people.

This is especially an issue because a lot of people take a daily “multivitamins and minerals” tablet, and figure it’ll cover whatever their diet misses.

That’s reasonable logic, but those kinds of supplements don’t usually have potassium, for the simple reason that to get even the low-end recommended daily amount (3.4g), then no matter how you slice it, you cannot fit 3.4g of potassium into a multivitamin tablet that weighs about 1g in total and has a lot of other things in there too. So, they usually just skip it entirely, or include a very tiny amount.

So, if you want to supplement, soluble powder is probably better than tablets; here’s an example product on Amazon—by all means feel free to shop around.

Additionally, you might want to consider, if you use salt in your cooking, switching sodium chloride (table salt, sea salt, rock salt, etc) for potassium chloride, which is also “salty” to the taste but has the double-effect of reducing your sodium intake while increasing your potassium intake.

“Low sodium salt” as sold in supermarkets is very often a mixture of sodium chloride and potassium chloride—check the labels, and try to choose one with a good potassium ratio.

See also: Why the WHO has recommended switching to a healthier salt alternative

Want to learn more?

Check out:

10 Ways To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally ← getting more potassium is #3 on the list!

Take care!