Hi, I'm Dr. Ken Berry, a family physician and for the next few minutes I really want to discuss something
that's quite important for human health and
optimization and that's
potassium and potassium
deficiency and this video is gonna be about the seven most common signs of low potassium or potassium
deficiency that your doctor might miss.
Some of these signs and symptoms can be quite subtle and if you're not looking for them and know what to look for,
you can overlook them and then you'll go on suffering from
deficiency in potassium and not know you're suffering.
So if you know someone who values their health and would like to know if their potassium is optimized or not
please share this video with them in an email, text message. Share it on your Facebook, your Twitter, your Instagram,
help me to help other people live their best
optimal healthiest life. Now let's talk about first of all what potassium does in the human body?
It does thousands of things,
this video would be hours long if I tried to cover them all but let's sum it up into three big categories.
First of all,
potassium acts as an electrolyte and it helps to balance the fluid in your body and you'll see down in the seven signs some of
these signs are directly related to that. So balancing your fluid properly is very important
if it's not balanced properly it can lead to heart failure and other things and
so in that case, we don't want to have low potassium
also, it functions to help nerves to conduct quickly and very efficiently if your nerve conduction is slow
that can lead to problems as we'll see later in this video and then also potassium helps your muscles contract
optimally and strongly and you have three different types of muscle in your body
you have smooth muscle in your gut and your internal organs, you have cardiac muscle in your heart and you have
striated muscle in your
skeletal muscles the muscles that you actually think of when you make a muscle, right?
Now, the serum potassium in your blood is
tightly controlled. Your body has to keep it between a
certain and usually it's three and a half to four and a half somewhere in there
it's very tightly controlled. And so your body in order to keep your serum potassium level within normal limits
it will rob potassium from your muscles from your gut from your nerves from your bones
even from your brain if it has to
because it without your serum potassium being in this very tight range
you'll quickly die and your body knows that and so that's why you can actually go to the doctor and have your serum potassium
checked and it'd be normal, but you'd still be very deficient in potassium. Now, let's talk about the seven signs that
you need to know about so that you can know if you potentially have low potassium or not. First of all number one is
Physical weakness you feel like you should be able to pick that up or you feel like you should be able to climb those stairs
But when you try you become very weak very quickly
Now this sign and all the other signs can be signs of other things as well
But one of the most important things they could be a sign of, is low potassium
number two is
mental fatigue, so not physical fatigue or physical weakness, but mental fatigue and
irritability if you're just irritable and you're not really sure why or
If you're just mentally very very sluggish that could definitely be
low potassium. Number three is muscle cramps, muscle twitches, muscle spasms. If you've jumped up in the middle of the night
with a leg cramp, that's almost
assuredly, low potassium.
If you have muscle twitches under the eye or muscle spasms when you really shouldn't be having that kind of muscle movement,
that could be low potassium.
Number four is constipation and bloating
thus your
large intestine is lined with smooth muscle,
that's what helps move the feces through there.
If your smooth muscle doesn't have access to enough potassium,
you can have constipation and that's why an electrolyte drop that has potassium in it can help
amazingly with constipation, bloating is the same thing. You can't move the gas along if your smooth muscle is not
operating optimally.
Number five :
palpitations or arrhythmias this is when you can actually feel your heart beating or your heart is obviously not beating in a
normal sinus rhythm.
Your heart is made of the cardiac muscle and that can definitely be affected if your potassium is low. Number six is edema or
fluid retention and so if you've got swollen ankles or your
fingers are swollen and you can't get your ring off that you can normally get off, that could absolutely be low potassium and potassium
might help fix the edema around your ankles and the swelling in your fingers as well.
Number
seven : muscle aches and stiffness so different than muscle tiredness or fatigue or weakness is
If you wake up and you're just achy and stiff and you're like I didn't really do anything yesterday
I don't know why I'm so achy and stiff that could absolutely be low potassium numb and now a bonus one if your potassium gets
super super low you can actually have numbness in your fingers and toes in your hands and feet and
that's when your potassium has gotten really really low, at that point
you need to see a doctor and so for any of these signs that I've talked about in this video
I would go see your doctor and don't be surprised if your potassium level is within normal limits.
Remember I said you can have severely depleted potassium levels in your body and have a normal serum potassium
level and that's why I like to eat lots of potassium rich foods
I'm actually gonna link a video either here here of the seven foods high in potassium that you can enjoy on a ketogenic diet.
Sometimes when I have a cup of coffee
I love to put some electrolyte drops in that coffee just to make sure I'm getting enough potassium and and
magnesium and chloride and sodium and all that stuff and I'll put a link down to my favorite
electrolyte drops down in the show notes below.
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