Potassium, Deficiency and Potassium Rich Food

Potassium represents 5% percent of the total mineral content of a human body, even though only about one litre is found in the body at a time. Potassium is found in our bodies both inside and outside cells and is a very important mineral required every day to stay healthy. More than 98% of the body's potassium is intracellular. The body easily absorbs potassium, but nearly 90% of it is excreted through the kidneys and bowels. Thus, potassium is a natural diuretic and is important for the elimination of body wastes, such as water and sodium.

Potassium is a primary electrolyte, it is a great alkalizer, and important for maintaining pH and water balance.

Benefits of potassium:
1. Along with other minerals such as sodium, chloride and calcium, potassium helps in normal cellular function, such as transmission of nerve impulses, digestion, healthy muscle contractions, proper cardiovascular functioning (heartbeat irregularities are normally a sign of potassium deficiency), and helping the body to convert glucose into glycogen (the body's stored form of energy).

2. Potassium helps promote healthy cardiovascular health. It is strongly believed that potassium has the ability to pump sodium out of the body’s cells and reduce body fluid.

3. Potassium, along with sodium, helps to regulate blood pressure. Increasing potassium in the diet may protect against hypertension in people who are sensitive to high levels of sodium.

4. Potassium also affects blood vessel tone as well as the way blood vessels react to the flowing hormones, thus affecting pressure within blood vessels.

5. Potassium therapeutically assists in the treatment of alcoholism, acne, alleviating allergies, promoting the early healing of burns.

6. It also helps with problems such as congestive heart failure, chronic fatigue syndrome or kidney stones.

7. Potassium plays a vital role in cellular integrity by regulating the transfer of nutrients into the cell.

8. Potassium also attracts oxygen to tissues, helps correct positioning of vital organs. Potassium deficiency indicates that probably albumin, sugar, sodium, and chlorine are also in short supply or not being properly absorbed.

9. Potassium helps proper functioning of the adrenal glands. It helps support healthy sugar balance in the body.

Deficiency Of Potassium

The kidneys excrete excess potassium from the body, and deficiencies are rarely found in people on a normal balanced diet. A deficiency may result in fatigue, cramping legs, muscle weakness, sluggish reflexes, acne, dry skin, mood swings and irregular heartbeat.

A shortage of potassium in body may cause a fatal condition known as hypokalemia, resulting from diarrhoea, increased diuresis and vomiting. Hypokalemia can occur in people with a chronic disease or due to ageing process. Deficiency symptoms include muscle weakness, ECG abnormalities, decreased reflex response, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmia and respiratory paralysis.

If the fluid and electrolyte balance is not restored, the risk of heart failure increases.

Potassium deficiency increases acid levels in the body, lowers the natural pH balance, causes problems with the formation of connective tissue. Kidney diseases (such as acute renal failure), diabetes can also cause fluctuations in the levels of potassium. Many medications such as diuretics, cortisone, prolonged use of aspirin, and laxatives also cause depletion of potassium.

Dietary sources of potassium:
Eating a variety of foods that contain potassium is the best way to get the required amount. Individuals who eat a balanced diet do not need potassium supplements. Foods, which are rich sources of potassium include turnips, whole grains, molasses, fish, citrus fruit, apple cider vinegar, bananas, avocados, yoghurt, tomatoes, poultry, oranges, apricots, potatoes (especially their skins), leafy green vegetables such as spinach, lettuce; and meat. One large orange will supply one with 250 mg of potassium, one-eighth of a person’s daily need. Dried apricots contain more potassium than fresh apricots.

Steaming of foods helps to retain nutrients that are lost through other cooking techniques such as boiling (loss of about 50% of potassium content). Steaming results in only a 6% loss of potassium.

Common Problems Of The Nervous System

When the nervous system is affected through irritation, damage, or disease, it can result in either partial or complete paralysis. This can be flaccid paralysis, perhaps the result of a severed nerve, which leaves the muscles floppy and without sensation, or spastic weakness of paralysis, when the muscles become rigid due to nerve damage in the brain or spinal cord, perhaps following a stroke. Paralysis can be either temporary or permanent. In diseases such as Parkinson's or MS, there may be weakness without paralysis.

Neuritis
Numbness, tingling, pain, or muscle weakness due to the degeneration of nerve tissue, neuritis is caused by inflammation, disease, or damage. Symptoms vary according to whether it is the sensory nerve fibers or motor nerve fibers that are affected. Alcoholism may exacerbate the condition.

Treatment
This depends on the underlying cause and severity of the damage. Specific causes include diabetes, which can be treated by rebalancing the body's sugar metabolism.

Naturopathy Treatment will be aimed at addressing dietary deficiencies, boosting vitamin intake and energy levels. Excessive alcohol consumption can also be treated with naturopathy to regulate diet.

Diet and Nutrition Restoring the body's natural chemical dehydroepaindrosterone (DHEA) may also help Optimum levels are 750-1250ng/dL for men, 550-980ng/dL for women. Supplements of 50-100mg per for men, and 20-75mg for women may be recommended.

Recommended Daily Allowance Of Potassium

There is no recommended daily allowance (RDA) for potassium, but it is advised to get between 2,000-3,000 mg per day. The range of intake for children is 780 to 1,600 mg per day.

This is not difficult, and most people meet this requirement on their own through a normal diet. In general, nutritionists recommend reducing salt intake and ensuring adequate supply by increasing the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in the diet.

If one is into bodybuilding, he must increase the potassium intake, since potassium is needed to maintain muscles in good form, and also because potassium is lost from excessive sweating and urine.

Symptoms of high intake of potassium:
Excessive potassium can be toxic and will affect the heart. This is a problem especially when one is suffering from some problem such as kidney failure. Irregular heart beat and muscle fatigue is sign of toxic potassium levels. In healthy people, the kidneys in the urine excrete excess potassium.

Who requires extra potassium?
People who require potassium supplements include:

• women on oral contraceptives,
• chronic alcoholics or drug abusers,
• smokers
• people undergoing stress
• athletes
• people doing strenuous exertion,
• anyone suffering from any degree of mal-absorption syndrome
• people with eating disorders, especially bulimia and anorexia..

Herbal Medicine, Aromatherapy, Homeopathy, and Yoga, These have been found helpful

Neuralgia
Neuralgia is pain in a particular' and is due to nerve damage, irritation, or pressure. The pain usually lasts for only a brief period, but may be severe and is often described as a shooting sensation. It is a symptom of shingles, which is an infection of the nerves leading to areas of the skin; for instance, down one side of the trunk, neck or arm, or, more rarely, the face. Postherpetic pain, which is pain following a herpes zoster infection, is caused by damage to the nerves, which results in repeated, strong nerve impulses being produced and sent to the brain. The pain is severe and can last for weeks or months.

Treatment
Acupressure Trigeminal neuralgia, a spasmodic pain on one side of the face, can be self-treated by lightly pressing inward with the index fingers, just below the inner side of the brow, or from the same point, downward to the mouth. Neuralgia accompanying migraine can also be treated with light pressure or acupuncture.

Biofeedback and Homeopathy Remedies and biofeedback may be used to prevent stress, which may bring on attacks of neuralgia.
Acupuncture Particularly when used early on, this has been shown to prevent postherpetic neuralgia­following shingles.

Tens Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation This therapy uses electrodes to block these nerve impulses and stimulate the release of endorphins, the body's natural pain-relieving hormones, and is also particularly useful for pain following an attack of shingles , and for other forms of neuralgia or face pain.

Aromatherapy, Chiropractic, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hypnotherapy, Naturopathy, and Osteopathy have also proved beneficial.

How To Use Potassium Sorbate Yeast Infection Remedy As A Yeast Infection Cure

If you like to brew your own beer then chances are that you will have some potassium sorbate lying around the house. And if you don’t, you can always find some quite easily in places that sell home brewing products. Of course you can also find it in natural food stores, but it is definitely more colorful to be able to tell someone to get there potassium sorbate from a home brewing supply store!

Anyway the whole reason that you want potassium sorbate yeast infection remedy in the first place is because it stops the growth of yeast in their tracks, so to speak. It’s known as a highly effective fungicide, and is used in the process of brewing beer to stop the yeast from growing when it’s no longer needed for the fermentation process.

On an added note, if you look on the labels of some preserved foods, you might find that potassium sorbate is listed as one of the preservatives. This is naturally enough to suppress the growth of fungus or other harmful bacteria in the food.

The way to take potassium sorbate yeast infection remedy as a cure for yeast infections is very simple really. Use: 1 tbsp Potassium Sorbate, 1 cup Water, 1 Tampon Syringe. Dissolve the potassium sorbate in the water. Insert the tampon into the vagina and then, using the syringe, douse the tampon with the potassium sorbate solution.

You can keep the tampon in overnight if you wish to, and the remedy can be repeated over several nights. However don’t go on for more than a week with potassium sorbate yeast infection remedy. If by that time your yeast infection hasn’t cleared up you might try another cure altogether or barring that, want to check with a doctor.

Remember that potassium sorbate yeast infection remedy is not a substitute for proper medical advice, and since I’m not a doctor¸ you should always check with your doctor before trying any of these out.

Recharge Your Batteries With Potassium

Thomas Edison realized the importance of potassium when he first introduced the design for the alkali battery that is still used to this day. But even Edison might not have realized that potassium has an equally crucial role in our body’s health. Potassium is essential for the movement of electrical currents both in batteries and our own body. Therefore, potassium nutritional supplements can help recharge our body’s batteries and increase overall health.

Our body absorbs potassium from our food or nutritional supplements through the small intestines, where it is then stored our body tissues. Our kidneys determine how much potassium is needed at any particular time, the excess being excreted through the urine. Potassium is also lost through sweating and so vitamins or nutritional supplements containing this essential mineral are often needed to keep our health batteries topped-up. But what exactly are the health benefits of potassium? Why are vitamin nutritional supplements of potassium so essential to our body?

The Many Health Benefits of Potassium
As already mentioned, potassium helps our body’s “batteries”: transmitting electrical impulses in the heart and also the nerve cells. However, it has many more health benefits that this. Potassium in the diet or as nutritional supplements can help to regulate acidity levels in the stomach, regulate water balance, control neuromuscular function, and also lower blood pressure. So how do potassium nutritional supplements provide all these health benefits?

Potassium Provides Energy: Vitamin nutritional supplements of potassium help carbohydrate metabolism and the synthesis of protein from amino acids. This helps in relieving stress symptoms such as anxiousness and fatigue. Potassium maintains the right balance fat, water, and other fluids in the body. Vitamin supplements of potassium also help the muscles to contract smoothly and balancing body cells

Controls High Blood Pressure: Potassium nutritional supplements have also found to be able to control high blood pressure. Research has shown a relation between low potassium levels and increased risk of blood pressure. High blood pressure increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. Potassium nutritional supplements with doses ranging from 2.5 to 5 g. have been used in the treatment of high blood pressure.

Heart Diseases: If your multi vitamin contains potassium then it will helps in dilating blood vessels and in lowering the formation of free radicals and blood clots. This in turn reduces the risk of a whole host of cardiovascular diseases.

Supports the Kidneys: Potassium helps to prevent the formation of kidney stones by washing away in the urine the small crystals that would otherwise build-up into large and painful kidney stones. Nutritional supplements can provide the body with enough potassium to carry out this important function.

How Do I Get Potassium? Safe Usage Of Nutritional Supplements

Potassium can be obtained in the diet foods, particularly rich sources being: fruits such as apples, pineapples, bananas, melons, citrus fruits, dried apricots, and peaches. Vegetable sources of potassium include cauliflower, beans, green leafy vegetables, spinach, carrots, and potatoes. Besides these, some other potassium can also be found in meat, poultry, fish, milk, cheese, yogurt, and whole-grain cereals.

However, potassium is easily lost during the cooking process, and many soils are naturally deficient in this mineral - meaning that vitamins supplements are often needed restore balance and health to our bodies.
Multi vitamins or nutritional supplements containing potassium can be beneficial in the treatment of diseases like diabetes, insomnia, polio, hypertension, and angina pectoris, where deficiency is more likely. Potassium consumed in multi-vitamins is usually safe, but it is advisable to consult your physician before taking any nutritional supplements because consumption of too much potassium can be toxic.

Potassium is not only used as a battery for our radios, flashlights, or other electrical goods. They’re also a natural battery for our body’s health. So keep yourself fully charged by making sure your nutritional supplements contain enough potassium.

Which Protein Is Best For You?

If you are physically active and taking supplements but still cannot seem to get the energy back in your body and brain, then it's time to look at how much and what kind of protein you are getting. Even though dieters have been using high-protein diets for years, many are unaware of how much protein they actually need and how critical it is to their overall health. Low-protein diets can be lacking greatly in a lot of essential nutrients such as zinc, iron, manganese, chromium, copper, and others. This deficiency can cause illness and fatigue. Protein deficiency leads to difficult recovery from exercise, feeling tired, frequent colds, poor hair or nails, and a cessation in menstrual period for women, which may sound pleasant but is potentially dangerous. People of all ages are not aware of how much their protein needs change as they increase exercise. As your activity increases, so does your protein needs.

Protein is important in your body because every single cell in the body is made up of proteins. Protein is also essential for muscle building, producing red blood cells, the production of various enzymes and hormones, and good hair, nails, and skin. Our immune systems are almost all protein based, so providing our body with protein means that we can fight colds and other infections better. Proteins are also needed in our body to repair muscle damage that occurs during mild exercise. Protein is made from a chain of amino acids and our body cannot make some of these amino acids, which means that they need to be found in our diet. There are eight amino acids that our body cannot make and must be found in our diet every day. These include: isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Although it is nice to know which amino acids are essential, it is even more important to know where you can find these amino acids because your muscles and body need them on a daily basis.

Since proteins are constantly being broken down, it is necessary to get some every day. It is suggested that women aged 19 to 70 need 46 grams of protein per day, while men of the same age need 56 grams. Now that you know that protein is essential to your life, what kind of protein is actually needed? Even though protein can be found in a good diet by simply eating meat, nuts, eggs, and other foods, many of us with busy lives need a quick and convenient source of protein. At a health food store, your choices are soy, casein, whey, and egg. Although the classic protein source is whey protein, the problem is that even though it has a high amount of useable amino acids, some people don't like it or have a hard time taking it. Other proteins like soy and casein don't have the complete amino acid content that your body is looking for.

With all the different forms of protein available one might wonder which is best? Egg white is the perfect protein source. Egg whites contain more than half the protein of an egg and are also rich in chlorine, niacin, potassium, magnesium, riboflavin, selenium, vitamin K, and sulfur. Additionally, egg whites have a high amount of protein but exclude the cholesterol and sodium found in the yolk. Egg white protein is considered almost perfect because human requirements for amino acids and the amino acids contained in eggs are almost identical. Eggs are also one of the well-tolerated proteins, as over 90 percent of the protein of eggs is digested into the individual amino acids that your body needs. Egg white protein is one of the few products on the market that taste good without the added artificial flavors, colors, or additives.