Potassium

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 05:55:35 GMT,

(CeciliaHeld) said:

I was having some leg cramps so I bought a Potassium supplement today
and noticed that it recommends 1 tablet (99mg) per day.

Given that foods such as meats and leafy vegetables end up providing
thousands of milligrams of potassium, what impact would a 99mg
supplement have.

For those who take this supplement, how much do you take and do you
also take magnesium?

Thanks.

The over-the-counter potassium supplements are almost useless. They
are restricted by law to have less than 100 mg elemental potassium.
IIRC, the reason they do this is to try to prevent stomach problems
that can be caused by a big lump of potassium compound sitting in one
place against the stomach lining. Taking large numbers of these pills
would defeat the point of that protection, and to get your recommended
daily allowance you'd have to swallow dozens of them. (RDA is around
3500-4000 mg.) For people who really require supplements of potassium
(people on a modified fast like Opti-Fast), for example), doctors
prescribe a type of potassium that disolves slowly (Slo-K) and make
you take the pills several times per day to reduce the amount in your
stomach at any given instant. As I recall it's 600 mg Slo-K taken 3
times per day.

If your diet is not providing enough potassium, the easiest and
cheapest way is to buy either "Lite Salt" (half-and-half sodium
chloride <normal table salt> and potassium chloride) or go all the way
to "Salt Substitute" which is entirely potassium chloride. No
prescription required. Many people find the taste of potassium
chloride to be almost identical to sodium chloride (I'm one of them).
Others find it has a somewhat metallic taste. But because it is
distributed so evenly in your food/stomach it doesn't cause problems
(the same way that eating a banana with 500 mg potassium doesn't cause
a problem).

For leg cramps, magnesium and calcium are both very helpful. I had
originally thought that magnesium was the only supplement I needed to
avoid cramps, but by experimenting found that the combination worked
best for me. So I use 500 mg calcium and 500 mg of magnesium (once
per day for each) and use Salt Substitute and my nightly leg cramps
disappeared completely.

We're all a bit different in what we need, so while you might take
that as a starting place you should experiment a bit to find out what
works best for you. You might not find complete relief the first
night - I think it takes a bit of time to get fully into your muscles
and such. But if you want to start with a double dose the first day,
go ahead. It won't hurt and it might help. But if you are taking the
supplements regularly you probably would only need the lower dose.

If you have been taking the supplements regularly, you will probably
also have a cushion of several days before the cramps return. So if
you went away for a quick weekend trip and forgot to pack them, you'd
probably be all right. It would take a while for the levels in your
muscles to fall to a critical point (for me it's about 4 days).