Potassium Benefits

Potassium is an electrolyte (a substance that maintains your body's fluid levels), this mineral helps regulate blood pressure and heart function. Research shows that increasing your potassium intake can lower your blood pressure. Those individuals with existing hypertension, as well as those just looking to keep their blood pressure in check, can benefit from potassium.A Harvard study showed that men who took a potassium supplement with a diuretic decreased their incidence of stroke by 60 percent, compared to men who did not. Potassium neutralizes acids and restores alkaline salts to the bloodstream. Potassium works with sodium in all cells including at nerve synapses to maintain or restore membrane potentials and to assist in metabolic processes. Potassium is critical to our cardiovascular and nerve functioning, regulating the transfer of nutrients into cells and facilitating muscle energy.Potassium also regulates water balance and assists recuperative powers. Potassium aids rheumatic or arthritic conditions (causing acids to leave the joints and ease stiffness). Potassium is crucial for the elimination of wastes. Potassium is a natural pain desensitizer. Potassium helps control convulsions, headaches and migraines, promotes faster healing of cuts, bruises and other injuries and generally contributes to a sense of well being. Potassium is stored in the muscles. Body builders use a “potassium load” to give their muscles more energy but there is no scientific proof of its effectiveness.Potassium naturally wants to bind to something to form a potassium compound. Since the human body is very inefficient at breaking down compound minerals, only a small percentage of the Potassium we consume actually gets used. To be utilized, Potassium must be in elemental form. The Potassium molecule needs be small enough to enter an individual cell, and it must be inside a water molecule.Thus, Potassium must be water-soluble. Water-soluble minerals cannot build up in the body. Therefore they do not reach toxic levels. You can also get your potassium by eating lots of produce - bananas, orange juice, dried dates, and apricots. You need about 3,500 mg daily, but over-the-counter supplements contain no more than 99 mg.The small amount of potassium in your multivitamin is fine, and don’t take more than 99 mg daily in supplement form because it can irritate your stomach. The effective dose of potassium you need? Take a multivitamin and eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily.Potassium taken in excess can throw off your electrolyte balance and slow your heart down to dangerous levels. Potassium supplementation is, however, important for people taking certain types of diuretics, those that are non-potassium sparing such as Lasix.Some Symptoms of Potassium Deficiency include poor circulation, bluish tint to skin, Chronic-Fatigue Syndrome, diabetes, earaches, edema, headaches, heart palpitations, hypertension, insomnia, intestinal pain, muscle weakness, oppressive breathing, pain in the eyes, prolapsed uterus, swollen glands, tissue anemia, and water retention.All wasting diseases are associated with loss of potassium from the tissues. Potassium deficiency disturbs the excitability of tissues and leads to paralysis of muscle, including cardiac muscle. Sodium and potassium are two of the most important ions in maintaining the homeostatic equilibrium of the body fluids.It is important that one be very careful in choosing a top quality supplement manufacturer when buying your mineral, including potassium. Take the following precautions when doing so: Because minerals work synergistically, it is important that your supplement be formulated by scientists with top notch credentials. Many products on the market are simply “thrown together” and many of the ingredients can end up canceling each other out or even have harmful consequences. Moreover, supplements that are not scientifically formulated generally have poor bioavailability, which means that most of the ingredients will simply pass through the system and excreted with little to no benefit. Because the supplement industry is not regulated in the U.S., consumers only have a one in five chance of buying what is stated on the label. Not only that, but many supplements have been verified by independent third party tests to have toxic contaminants, such as lead. It is therefore absolutely crucial that you choose a manufacturer that follows pharmaceutical GMP compliance, which is the highest standard possible.Choose a mineral supplement that uses the chelated form. Chelated minerals are ones that are attached to protein molecules, which in turns allows them easier transport into the bloodstream for better absorption. Minerals that can come in chelated form are: boron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, vanadium. Call or email the company and ask if they have a certificate of analysis on file, confirming the potency of each batch. Avoid companies that do not respond or waver in their answer.

Synthetic Vitamins Danger

Here are some facts that you won’t find advertised on most of the vitamin supplements at your local vitamin store:

The majority of commercial vitamin supplements are made up of synthetic vitamins.

Synthetic vitamins do not perform the same functions in your body as vitamins found naturally in whole food.

Many synthetic vitamins deplete your body of other nutrients and tax your kidneys before being excreted through your urine. If you want a comprehensive understanding of what vitamins are and what they do in your body, it would be best to take a full course in biochemistry. Do you remember all of those molecular formulas and chemical reactions that you studied in your high school chemistry class? Biochemistry is really just an extension of chemistry, with an emphasis on the thousands of chemical reactions that occur in your body on a moment-to-moment basis. Anyone who studies biochemistry learns that vitamins do not exist as single components that act on their own. Vitamins are made up of several different components –

• enzymes,
• co-enzymes,
• and co-factors–

that must work together to produce their intended biologic effects. Vitamins that are found naturally in whole foods come with all of their necessary components. The majority of vitamins that are sold in pharmacies, grocery stores, and vitamin shops are synthetic vitamins, which are only isolated portions of the vitamins that occur naturally in food.

A good example is vitamin C. If you take a look at a variety of vitamin C supplements, you will find that the majority of them contain only ascorbic acid or a compound called ascorbate, which is a less acidic form of acorbic acid.

Ascorbic acid is NOT vitamin C.

It represents the outer ring that serves as a protective shell for the entire vitamin C complex, much like an orange peel that serves as a protective shell for an orange.

Real vitamin C found in whole foods like fruits and vegetables contain the following components:

• Rutin
• Bioflavonoids (vitamin P)
• Factor K
• Factor J
• Factor P
• Tyrosinase
• Ascorbinogen
• Ascorbic Acid
  

When you take only ascorbic acid found in your synthetic vitamin C tablet or powder, your body must gather all of the other components of the full vitamin C complex from your body’s tissues in order to make use of it. In the event that your body does not have adequate reserves of the other components, ascorbic acid itself does not provide any of the health benefits that the full vitamin C complex does. After circulating through your system, the unused ascorbic acid is eliminated through your urine.

Just like vitamin C, almost all other vitamins that we know of offer their full health benefits when they are in the presence of a number of

enzymes, co-enzymes, co-factors, and even minerals.

For example:

• Vitamin D may have as many as twelve different active components,
• while vitamin P has at least five different components.
• The mineral copper is needed for full vitamin C activity,
• while vitamin E works closely with the mineral selenium to provide its health promoting, anti-oxidative effect.

Clearly, it is best to get your vitamins from whole foods because whole foods provide complete vitamins rather than fractions of them. In many cases, whole foods also provide the minerals that are necessary for optimal vitamin activity. For example, sunflower seeds are an excellent whole food source of vitamin E and the mineral selenium, both of which need each other to offer their full health benefits. How do you know if the vitamins on your kitchen counter are from whole foods or if they are synthetic?

If the list of ingredients includes an actual vitamin like “Vitamin C” rather than an actual food that contains natural vitamin C like “acerola cherry powder”, you can bet that it is a synthetic vitamin.

If you choose to use nutritional supplements, it is in your best interest to use only those products that list actual foods as their ingredients rather than synthetic and isolated vitamins. While some synthetic and isolated vitamins have been shown to provide minimal health benefits, on the whole, most of them cause more harm than good and you are far better off spending your money on whole foods. It is important to note that the principles in this article are just as relevant and applicable to minerals and mineral supplements.