Insulin Resistance, Potassium & Blood Pressure – Dr. Berg

Hey , guys .

Doctor Berg here .

In this video , we're gonna talk about insulin resistance , potassium , and blood pressure .

Out of all the nutrients that you need , potassium is something needed in very large quantities .

You need 47 100 milligrams of potassium every single day .

Now , what does that mean with food ?

It means that hardly anyone is getting their potassium because you would need 7 to 10 cups of vegetables every single day .

Okay .

So how many cups of vegetables do you consume in a given day ?

Maybe 5 ?

Maybe less ?

But III do it because I I feel so much different .

But here's the thing , we need 4 times as much potassium as we do sodium .

K .

Most people consume 4 times as much sodium as they do potassium .

They have lot of fluid retention .

So , they both work together in relationship to fluids and hydration .

But we need if you look at vegetable content , it's always heavy in the potassium and very low in the sodium .

Okay ?

But if you're doing like chips and salty things , that's gonna that's gonna throw this whole thing off .

So what happens when you have low potassium is you get high blood pressure .

Potassium is a physiological relaxer .

It calms the nervous system .

It actually softens the arteries .

It actually can prevent strokes .

It's very , very healthy .

Healthy mineral .

And , so it can also prevent constipation .

It also can prevent leg cramps .

So , it's involved in nerve conductivity and muscle contraction and relaxation .

So with a problem with potassium , you can have a lot of cramps , tightness , and tension in your body , and you can also have a lot of , electrical problems with your heart .

Arrhythmias , atrial fib , that's all potassium deficiency because people don't consume enough .

So let's pretend that you're you have high blood pressure and you have to take a diuretic , thiazide .

Well , what that does is it gets rid of fluid .

Well , it does It also gets rid of potassium .

So what happens when you take this diuretic to fix your high blood pressure , you lose more potassium raising the blood pressure more .

So now , you need another medication .

And then you're told to drink more water , which dilutes the electrolytes more , especially potassium , and your blood pressure goes higher because more water is not gonna hydrate you .

It's gonna get rid of the electrolytes that you have , potassium , specifically , and you don't get the hydration you once had .

So the whole myth of drinking more water to hydrate you is not quite true .

You need the minerals , specifically potassium .

That's the 1 you need in the most amount .

Like , even magnesium , you need about 420 milligrams .

But potassium , maybe 47100 .

K ?

Now , also , if you're salt sensitive , okay , especially with your blood pressure , what that really means is you're potassium deficient .

The way to fix people that are salt sensitive is just increase potassium and they'll do fine .

So instead of restricting salt , why don't we just increase potassium ?

It's a better strategy because you need potassium for other things .

98% of all the potassium in your body is inside the cell , not outside the cell .

So when you get test tested from your blood or whatever testing you do , it's very difficult to test the potassium deficiency because it's all inside the cell .

And so , you might you might think you have normal levels , but you really don't because you never did a intracellular test for potassium .

K ?

The other interesting thing about potassium is it takes insulin to control and absorb potassium .

If you don't have enough insulin , you can't pull potassium in the cells .

So insulin regulates potassium .

Now , how does that relate to a pre diabetic , someone who has insulin resistance or a diabetic ?

Well , if they have insulin resistance , they're gonna have , the cells are gonna block insulin .

So guess what's gonna happen to the potassium ?

They're not gonna have enough potassium .

So a lot of times when you have , a prediabetic or , like even a diabetic state , they have a huge , huge deficiency of potassium .

And 1 of the things I make sure that they do is greatly increase the vegetable content to increase the potassium to help , balance this thing out because there's gonna have you're gonna have so many side effects from that .

So if you actually add more potassium , you can decrease the need for insulin .

So that's a really cool relationship .

I just wanted to touch on the relationship between these 2 , these 3 items right here , and if you have blood pressure , start increasing your vegetables .

And if you like this kind of information , if you like learning about nutrition , if if you find it interesting , I have a health coaching training program that you might be interested in learning about where we teach you a lot more about nutrition and how the body works .

So if you wanna apply to the scholarship that I have , click the link below , check it out , study it and maybe you can be a health coach as well .

Thanks for watching .