![Wilowrid Advertisement](https://s3.amazonaws.com/blog.wilowrid.com/ads.webp)
Hi guys .
Today we're gonna talk about potassium and when you should not take extra potassium .
The typical situation is that people are deficient potassium and they need more potassium .
And it's actually a rare , condition where you would need to cut back .
Okay .
Now when I'm talking about excess potassium , you have this condition called hyperkalemia .
This is too much potassium in your blood .
98% of all the potassium is inside the cell versus the outside the cell .
In order to really know what's happening with potassium , I would recommend taking an intracellular potassium test .
And , you can look it up online to try to find out where you could take it .
I think it'd be a very valuable thing , but that would measure how much potassium is inside the cell .
That being said , some of the symptoms with hyperkalemia would be palpitations , muscle weakness , numbness , abnormal heart rate , and shortness of breath .
And these are the identical symptoms by the way when you have hypo , kalemia , which is interesting .
So you can't really know what's happening based on the symptom .
You could take a blood test .
However , these are the top 3 conditions where you would not wanna take potassium and I'm gonna tell you why .
First 1 is stage 5 kidney disease .
That would be end stage renal failure .
Renal meaning kidney .
So if the kidneys are really diseased you would not want to take potassium .
However , this is rare and potassium normally protects the kidney .
Okay ?
It helps the kidney especially with blood pressure .
In fact , it can probably help you lower your blood pressure .
So just because you have kidney disease doesn't mean you don't need normal amounts of potassium .
So you just need to check with your doctor .
They're gonna tell you when you should avoid potassium or take potassium if you have a kidney problem .
And the real issue with this is that if the kidney is diseased and it stops filtering and you're taking more potassium , you won't be able to release it and get rid of the excess amount and too much potassium could be a problem .
But if you have healthy kidneys , it's almost impossible to develop hypercalamine , not too much potassium in the blood through taking too much potassium .
Because simply your body can easily get rid of excessive amounts of potassium mainly from the function of aldosterone .
This is a hormone from the adrenal glands and the purpose of aldosterone is to retain sodium and get rid of excess potassium .
So let me just kind of cover this next reason and that's if you had an aldosterone deficiency .
And that can come from , adrenal failure , several other diseases of the adrenal gland in which you just don't have any more aldosterone .
In that case , you won't be able to regulate properly the potassium and it can go too high .
Again , very rare .
Okay .
Addison's disease .
This is a condition also rare where you basically lose the function of your adrenal glands .
And in that state , you you lose a lot of weight , your skin gets bronzed , the inside of your lips and even your lips can get blue , your immune system is very very fragile and you lose a ton of salt or basically sodium .
So if you were to take excessive amounts of potassium , guess what you're gonna do ?
You're gonna drive down sodium even more .
Well , Addison's disease is a state where you really need more salt And a patient with this condition should be taking a ton of salt through the day to actually maintain the adrenal function .
And they should definitely avoid potassium because this is the mineral that they're having a problem with .
They have enough potassium , but they don't have enough sodium .
And as a side note , insulin helps you absorb potassium in your cells .
And if you have insulin resistance like a lot of people have , guess what ?
You're generally gonna be deficient in potassium .
You're not gonna have enough potassium in cells , which is a more common condition .
So taking more potassium will help regulate insulin and definitely help insulin resistance .
Alright , guys .
Thanks for watching .
So if you want more knowledge on how to create a healthy body , subscribe now and get daily notifications .