So, why is potassium the most important electrolyte? That’s the question for today. Well, let’s just take a look at four main electrolytes. We have K+, which is the chemical symbol for potassium. We need 4,700 milligrams. Then, we have sodium (Na+), needed in amounts ranging from 1,500 to 2,300 milligrams. Next, there’s calcium (Ca), requiring 1,000 milligrams, and magnesium, where we only need 420 milligrams. So, we can see that we need ten times as much potassium as magnesium, twice as much as sodium, and four times as much as calcium.
So, why do we need so much potassium? First of all, what is an electrolyte? An electrolyte is an electrically charged mineral. When you take an electrolyte and put it in water, it separates and becomes conductive to electricity. Our bodies use electrolytes for various things: to help conduct nerve impulses, to help contract and relax muscles, to maintain pH in the body, and to help push fluid through the body. Thirty percent of all the energy in our body comes from this little pump called the sodium-potassium pump. But I do have to say that the definition for “pump” is slightly different than the pump you probably have in your basement, like the sump pump. This is a biological definition meaning the mechanism for movement of electrolytes through the cell membrane. Okay, so that’s a little bit different than just a pump pushing fluid somewhere.
Thirty percent of all the energy you have, whether it’s digesting or thinking, etc., comes from this sodium-potassium pump. The purpose of this pump is basically to keep sodium out and keep potassium in. So, it’s keeping these two minerals separated. Okay, that’s the purpose of this pump. Anytime you have two different minerals which are electrically charged in a different way, you form a battery. With a battery, you have a positive and a negative. There’s a difference in this electrical charge, which allows for energy to be maintained. For the purpose of this pump, it’s to maintain cellular energy. So, your cells are basically batteries, and the battery is there to help generate nerve impulses which are connected to muscles. So, it’s activating the muscles. You have electrical impulses that are actually changing the muscle rhythm. Then we need energy to have the muscles contract and relax and help regulate the pH of the body. One purpose of that is to allow enzymes to work. For example, there are certain enzymes that work in different pHs. So, if your digestive system is the wrong pH, that enzyme won’t work. Let’s take the stomach, for example. You have this extremely powerful protein enzyme called peptase. That enzyme is activated when the stomach reaches a certain pH level. If the stomach never reaches that pH level, then the enzyme never becomes activated and then you don’t digest protein. So, pH is very, very important, and the stomach is greatly dependent on potassium for its pH and its ability to digest protein.
Then we have fluid balance. If you don’t have enough potassium, guess what? Your ankles are going to swell up with fluid. Sometimes, when you see people with sandals, they have these indentations around the sandals where they have this puffy fluid. I just want to walk up to them and tell them, “Just take some potassium. All that fluid will completely go away, probably within a few hours.” But I have to withhold myself from doing that because sometimes people consider that rude.
So, what does potassium do? Well, it keeps us energetic. It gives us endurance when we exercise. If you’re low in potassium, you will not be able to go as far when you exercise. It also prevents cramping, like the cramps that you get in your calves or your feet. Now, it could also be magnesium as well. Also, potassium is necessary to prevent arrhythmias, which are part of the pacemaker of your heart. It also helps prevent twitching, tremors, constipation because you have this pumping action through your colon, which is controlled by the nervous system and the muscular system. So, without potassium, you don’t get this pumping action through the colon, and things just kind of sit there. Also, potassium is necessary to prevent vascular calcification. So, potassium is definitely needed in the regulation of calcium. Without potassium, you get insomnia. You can’t sleep. So, potassium is a physiological tranquilizer. It relaxes the body much like magnesium does. So, let’s just say, for example, you’re deficient in potassium for some reason. You’re going to lay there on the pillow and try to get to sleep, but your heart’s going to be pounding faster. You’re going to feel your muscles more tense. You’re not going to be able to get into that relaxed state.
The next thing is insulin resistance. I have a lot of videos on this topic. Potassium is needed to prevent insulin resistance. In fact, if you take a diabetic or a pre-diabetic or someone with insulin resistance, they’re always deficient in potassium. So, potassium will help your blood sugars. It will help lessen this insulin resistance. Insulin in the cell allows certain nutrients to go inside and fuel. So, anything that inhibits this insulin function stops the absorption of nutrients and fuel into the cells. So, this is just another reason why potassium is important in blood sugars.
You also have stored glucose that’s called glycogen. Glycogen is a string of glucose molecules, which also have with it a string of potassium molecules. So, in order for glucose to be stored in the liver and the muscle, you also need potassium. Without the potassium, you don’t store glycogen as well. So, if you don’t store glycogen, the body then starts storing more fat instead of stored sugar. So, potassium is involved in a lot of different aspects of your blood sugars. When you go on the ketogenic diet, the requirement for this glycogen goes down. So, you’re not going to need to store as much glycogen. The same thing goes with when you do intermittent fasting. So, you’re not eating, so your body is then running on ketones, so you’re not running on glucose. So, you don’t need as much of this, so this kind of goes away. So, you’re basically burning it up and it’s not replaced as much, especially in your liver after about one to two days. So, what happens is you’re going to lose a lot of glycogen glucose and you’re also going to lose potassium. This is why when you start on the ketogenic diet, you need to take a potassium supplement. I always recommend one in electrolytes so you have all of them, not just potassium.
The next thing that potassium does is it helps to prevent high blood pressure. If someone has high blood pressure, the easiest thing to do is just to increase the potassium in their body and it usually will come down. The other cause of high blood pressure is low vitamin D and then a lot of times people say, “Wait a second, I thought high blood pressure was caused by high sodium.” Well, you need sodium and potassium in the right ratios. So, instead of lowering sodium, which by the way you need a certain amount of sodium for a lot of reasons, why not increase potassium? Because yes, you might have too much sodium but in reality you just don’t have enough potassium to deal with that sodium. So, these people that are salt-sensitive usually are just potassium deficient.
Another common myth that I’ve heard is that you don’t want to take potassium because it’s very toxic to the kidney. That’s false information. In fact, potassium protects your kidneys. Unless you have stage five kidney failure, in which case you have to avoid a lot of different nutrients. But if you don’t have end-stage kidney failure, potassium is actually beneficial for the kidneys. I’m going to put a link down below for those people who have not heard that information before. In fact, potassium citrate is good for preventing kidney stones. It’s also good to prevent gout, which is uric acid crystals. So, potassium is actually very, very good for a lot of different things.
Now, I already mentioned this. It prevents edema, okay, swelling. If you have swelling, usually you have an imbalance of too much sodium and not enough potassium. When you take sufficient potassium, it’s like a diuretic. If you have fluid retention, you will get rid of that excess fluid. I already mentioned this. Potassium counters sodium toxicity. I also already mentioned that it helps you make stomach acid, and I also mentioned it helps prevent gout because potassium citrate is alkaline. If you keep the pH correct and don’t allow your pH to become too acidic, you won’t have these uric acid crystals coming out of solution aggravating your big toe joint.
So, now the question is: why are we deficient in potassium? Well, the number one reason is because of the diet. The average person only consumes about a cup and a half of vegetables every single day. Okay, a cup and a half. Well, where in food would you get a lot of rich potassium? Bananas, right? Well, in a banana, it’s only 300 milligrams. We need 4,700 milligrams. So, if we do the math, you would need 15.6 bananas per day to reach your 4,700 requirement. Now, the problem with bananas is they come with too much sugar. So, bananas are not the best source. The best source would be leafy greens. But yes, you would need at least seven to ten cups to contribute to this amount, but realize also other food will contribute, so it’s not just the salad. There’s