"Potassium Chloride Salt Substitute Side Effects"
Based on how we evolved, the Optimum Dietary Potassium Intake
likely greatly exceeds current and even recommended intakes.
The problem is we replaced many of the potassium-rich plant foods
we used to stuff our faces with, like fruits, leafy greens,
and other vegetables, including roots and tubers,
with calorie-dense junk--- stripped not only of fiber
but also potassium---such as added fats and sugars.
So in a traditional, largely plant-based diet,
potassium content is high and sodium content is low.
But now, high blood pressure's the second leading cause of death
in the world, killing more than 10 million people a year,
second only to unhealthy diets, the #1 killer of humanity.
We can improve both by eating more whole healthy plant foods like beans
and greens, which are packed with potassium, which lowers blood pressure.
But since most of us are getting too much sodium along with
too little potassium, what about using salt substitutes?
After all, the most commonly used salt substitute is potassium chloride,
so you'd be swapping out sodium for potassium.
And it works.
Based on a meta-analysis of more than a dozen randomized
controlled trials, replacing sodium chloride with potassium chloride
lowers blood pressure.
And most of the trials involved just swapping out regular salt
for less than 30% potassium chloride, and they still got results.
And at less than 30%, most people can't even tell the difference
between regular salt and the potassium salt.
So it can taste exactly the same and drop your blood pressures?
What's the catch?
Potassium chloride is generally considered as safe by the FDA,
with the only major concern for healthy people being that if you
go completely 100% sodium free and use straight potassium chloride,
like all these, it can taste kind of funny,
adding a bitter or metallic taste.
I've found that it depends on what I'm seasoning with it.
It works perfectly well on some things, but makes other things
completely inedible.
When I learned about the sodium science and threw out my salt shaker
for good, within a few weeks my palate totally changed,
and everything tasted fine without salt—except pesto.
For some reason, pesto without salt just never tasted like it used to, to me.
So I tried the potassium chloride salt substitute, and it worked perfectly;
I couldn't tell the difference at all, so I had the best of both worlds.
Then I remembered how as a kid I used to put a tiny sprinkle of salt
on watermelon like they do in the South to make it even sweeter.
So I tried it with the potassium salt and almost gagged.
So it's definitely not for everything.
The reason healthy people don't have to worry about
getting too much potassium
is that our kidneys just pee out the excess.
Okay, but that's with potassium in food. What about supplements?
No adverse effects have been shown for long-term intakes
of potassium supplements as high as 3,000 mg a day.
And in fact, blood levels of potassium are maintained in the normal range
by healthy kidneys even when potassium intake is increased
to approximately 15,000 mg a day, which is no surprise since we evolved
eating so many healthy plant foods, so many fruits and vegetables
that the normal, natural potassium intake for the human species
may be on the order of 15,000 mg a day.
Basically, the normal range for potassium levels in the blood
is between 3.5 and 5.0,
and you start to worry when it starts creeping up towards 6.
But give people potassium supplements, like all the salt
substitution trials that have been giving study subjects an average
of about 2,000 mg of potassium a day,
and blood levels only go up 0.14. So they might go up from 4 to 4.14,
not something that would push you into trouble.
Now there's a limit.
If you have a "massive banana eating habit", you could bump your potassium
from normal to above 6, but that was evidently from years of not eating
much of anything except up to 20 bananas a day.
Eating ten pounds of carrots every day is also probably not a good idea.
That's like 75 carrots in one day, which you could only do with a juicer,
which is what this person attempted to do as part of a quack cancer cure.
What about overdoing salt substitutes?
This report from the 1940's was on lithium poisoning
from the use of salt substitutes.
Why? Because lithium chloride was used as a salt substitute — Jesus!
But what about potassium chloride, which is what's used today?
There is one fatal case of someone who committed suicide by downing
a little more than a tablespoon of a potassium chloride salt substitute.
That doesn't seem like a lot, just a tablespoon?
I mean, how can we keep that on the shelves
if only a tablespoon will kill you?
Well, even less than that of regular salt taken at once can kill you, too.
In fact, salt water ingestion was evidently a traditional method
of suicide in ancient China, though these days
one may be more likely to die that way
from abusive religious practices.
Having said all that, there are a small number of the population
who may run into problems,
primarily those with severely impaired kidney function.
That's why there's been such a reluctance to push
potassium-based salt substitutes on a population level.
If your kidneys can't regulate your potassium,
then you can definitely run into a serious issue.
We're talking about folks with known kidney disease, diabetes---
since diabetes can lead to kidney damage---severe heart failure,
those on medications that impair potassium excretion, older adults,
and individuals with adrenal insufficiency.
If you aren't sure if you're at risk,
ask your doctor about getting your kidney function tested.
Ironically, potassium is so good at reducing deaths
from high blood pressure, even among those with kidney disease,
using potassium chloride salt substitutes would probably
still save more lives despite the risk.
Traditional dietary recommendations to kidney patients limited the intake
of fruits and vegetables because of their high potassium content.
However, this paradigm is rapidly changing due to
the multiple benefits derived from a fundamentally plant-based diet.
A whole food plant-based diet may even ameliorate chronic kidney disease.
There's increasing evidence that a whole food plant-based diet
may offer benefits like slowing the progression of chronic kidney disease
and delaying kidney failure.
So the practice of restricting dietary potassium in kidney patients
should really be reserved for patients with documented hyperkalemia,
a potassium level of 6 or higher,
because the key to halting progression of chronic kidney disease
may in fact lie in the produce aisle.