Potassium: the definitive guide for kidney disease pt1

Let’s immediately clarify one thing: you NEED potassium, even in kidney disease diet. Further to that, you do not need to run for the hills if a sure meals has high potassium levels. Eating a well balanced food regimen stuffed with vegatables and fruits is a GOOD thing, and should even aid you reverse your kidney disease…

 Confused as a result of it goes towards every little thing you have learn and have been informed? Don’t be, there may be good purpose, and I’ll do my best to explain…

 The goal of this article: to dispel the mis-conceptions round decreasing potassium in kidney disease; element easy to comply with steps on the best way to lower potassium ranges naturally by way of weight loss plan and different strategies; to educate you on all issues potassium, so the subsequent time you might be in front of your doctor you possibly can keep up, and possibly even educate him or her a factor or two.

Why Do I Need Potassium in a Kidney Disease Diet? 

 If you are new to this blog, it is very important know that before I start to get too deep into subject matter, I like first to carry it back a little so I can talk about the basics. This gives you a good frame work to understand some of the principles that I talk about, and lets you make better judgment calls once I, or your physician, says one thing. This means that you can be in command of your health. The way it should be, sure?

 

What is potassium?

• Potassium at its most basic stage is a smooth silvery-white metallic (mineral), sharing a really related chemical construction to sodium. Behind only to calcium and phosphorus, it is the most ample of all the minerals totalling 225 grams of your body weight – that’s the weight of the palm of your hand.
• Potassium is also called an ‘electrolyte’, due to its capacity to be electrically conductive. An necessary feature in the human body, contemplating you and I are a community of electrical pulses.
• Potassium naturally occurs in nature, and is discovered present in many foods (see additional on for a list of foods).
• Potassium is 19th on the periodic desk (K is the chemical symbol for Potassium in Latin)
• Fact: 1/three of the physique’s total energy is required to carry the situation of potassium and sodium in and round our cells.
• Note: Normal serum potassium levels are: three.5 and 5.5 mEq/L (reference vary)

 

Why do I need potassium?

Our body depends on this mineral for its survival… no potassium, no humans. Amazingly by our evolution we have utilized the earth from which we now have sprung to hold out and permit certain capabilities to occur in the physique. You could have heard that potassium is sweet for the center, good for muscle contractions, and therefore good for reducing blood strain, and even that it's beneficial in nerve conduction. All of that are true, but there may be so much more that this mineral does for you.

Here is a list of other things that Potassium does for you health:

• Helps to thin the blood
• Increases secretion of hormones: ADH, FSH and aldosterone
• Maintains water/fluid balance
• Eye health
• Regulates pH balance
• Regulates blood sugar
• Regulates cell permeability
• Aids protein synthesis
• Acts as a capacitor within our cells to store energy

In addition, here is a list of symptoms that may occur in case of Potassium deficiency  

• Kidney damage (I know that this may seem unexpected)
• Lung problems
• Metabolic acidosis
• Thirst
• Joint and bone pain
• Tachycardia
• Fatigue
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Mental confusion
• Bone fragility
• Muscle weakness
• Constipation
• Edema
• Abnormal heart beat
• Headaches
• Paralysis
• Insomnia
• Death

So I think that we can assume that you need potassium, even if you suffer from chronic kidney disease. 

If you want to know this topic better, I suggest you to read the last book from the Naturopath Duncan Capicchiano: The Kidney Disease Solution Program
In the next part we're gonna see how to manage potassium levels in a balanced kidney disease diet.