Can High Doses of Potassium Be Toxic

So is there such a thing as a toxic dosage of potassium ?

Let's talk about that .

Now the first thing to know is that you will rarely , if ever , have a problem with potassium if you get it from food .

I'm talking about 7 to 10 cups of vegetables per day .

Unless you have stage 5 kidney disease .

If the kidney is damaged , if you're having a chronic kidney problem , you're not gonna be able to filter out potassium like you should and it can build up and create a lot of problems with your body .

Also if you're taking large amounts of potassium and you're on a ACE inhibitor which is a blood pressure medication or a beta blocker or a potassium sparing diuretics , trying to lower your blood pressure .

Or you have Addison's disease which is rare but it's a complete adrenal burnout and you're taking a lot of potassium , it could exaggerate the symptoms .

There is a condition called hyperkalemia which is a problem in the blood where you have too much potassium .

And the symptoms would be malaise , palpitations , shortness of breath , muscle weakness .

Now let's talk about the extreme dosage and when the bee starts becoming toxic .

When you go between 8 , 000 to 10000 milligrams , you're gonna start feeling nauseous .

Okay .

Nausea is probably the first symptom you're gonna get .

But the real toxic effect of of Potassium happens right around 14 , 000 milligrams .

Especially if you're deficient in Potassium and you take that much potassium at 1 time .

It could be very very dangerous .

But realize that to do this you'd have to take a lot of potassium .

Even if you took straight potassium in a teaspoon , which is about 1 , 000 to maybe 25 100 milligrams .

You would have to take about 10 to 14 of those before this effect was achieved .

So basically what I'm telling you it it is very rare to have a toxic effect of Potassium if your kidneys are healthy and you're not on these medications .

Couple more points about potassium .

Potassium is not generally stored in the body .

So when you do prolonged fasting , okay , you can run out of potassium .

And for that reason , I do recommend when you're doing prolonged fasting is you do electrolyte fasting , where you're doing water and electrolytes while you're fasting .

That way you could prevent that problem .

Because you're not just taking potassium , you're taking all the electrolytes .

Another point , if you are deficient in B 1 and you take a tremendous amount of potassium , that can exaggerate the symptoms .

Of course , this is 1 of the reasons why I always recommend healthy keto because you're taking b vitamins or nutritional yeast with your electrolytes , and you're never gonna have a problem with that .

But on the flip side , if you're deficient in potassium and you take a lot of b 1 , let's say 5 , 000 milligrams , you're gonna have exaggerated symptoms from that .

But the point I'm trying to make with this is that these nutrients work in a synergistic effect .

Any time you take a tremendous amount of 1 nutrient and not the other ones , you can create a problem .

And that goes for this , the sodium and potassium ratio which is a little more important than just these minerals individually .

For example , if you consume a lot of potassium without sodium , that's gonna be a problem .

If you consume a lot of potassium with the right ratios of sodium , problem solved .

Same thing goes with , let's say , you're on a high salt diet and those symptoms from going on a high salt diet disappear when you take more potassium .

So the point is when you take 1 without the other , there's a problem .

So the more sodium you take , the more potassium you're gonna need .

The more potassium you take , the more sodium you're gonna need .

But realize that's a 1 to 4 ratio so you need 4 times as much potassium as sodium .

And that's why they work together .

And when you're going to the doctor for blood pressure problems or heart problems , they're always putting you on a sodium restrictive diet .

What they should do is just simply add more potassium .

That decreases the toxic effect of sodium .

So in summary , you would have to consume a tremendous amount of potassium to create a problem .

If you're consuming 1 , 2 , 3 or 4000 milligrams of potassium a day , you're not gonna have a problem .

But when you get higher , 8 , 000 , 10000 , you start experiencing symptoms .

And of course if you're going even higher than that , you potentially could have a problem as well but it's very rare .

Alright .

Thanks for watching .

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