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Recently I blogged about how critical Phosphorus control is to those of us on peritoneal dialysis. In this blog, I’m going to discuss another lab reading that my team keeps a close eye on, that being Potassium. My last lab result July 5, 2023, indicated my Potassium (symbol “K”) to be 4.2 with a goal between 3.5 and 5.5 so I’m within range. In the past, I have been right up against the upper limit with readings of 5.4 and 5.5.

There are many foods that are high in K, but herein let’s just frame those I often eat. Those are tomatoes, bananas, orange juice, avocado, cashews, lentils, and raisins. The most difficult for me to avoid is tomatoes. It is in many sauces, pizza, soup, salads, etc. I like to have 6 oz with breakfast to wash down my meds. But there is more to K than meets the eye and a cursory inspection. The following is quoted from here: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/potassium/

Potassium and Health

The functions of sodium and potassium in the body are closely related and often studied together.

The interplay of potassium and sodium

Potassium and sodium are closely interconnected but have opposite effects in the body. Both are essential nutrients that play key roles in maintaining physiological balance, and both have been linked to the risk of chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular disease. High salt intake increases blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease, while high potassium intake can help relax blood vessels and excrete sodium while decreasing blood pressure. Our bodies need far more potassium than sodium each day, but the typical U.S. diet is just the opposite: Americans average about 3,300 milligrams of sodium per day, about 75% of which comes from processed foods, while only getting about 2,900 milligrams of potassium each day. [3,4]

A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that:

  • People who ate high-sodium, low-potassium diets had a higher risk of dying from a heart attack or any cause. In this study, people with the highest sodium intakes had a 20% higher risk of death from any cause than people with the lowest sodium intakes. People with the highest potassium intakes had a 20% lower risk of dying than people with the lowest intakes. But what may be even more important for health is the relationship of sodium to potassium in the diet. People with the highest ratio of sodium to potassium in their diets had double the risk of dying of a heart attack than people with the lowest ratio, and they had a 50% higher risk of death from any cause. [5]
  • People can make a key dietary change to help lower their risk: Eat more fresh vegetables and fruits, which are naturally high in potassium and low in sodium, but eat less bread, cheese, processed meat, and other processed foods that are high in sodium and low in potassium.

So it looks like we’re walking on a knife’s edge again because of dialysis. Too much K is not good while too little is really not good. Life is made up of balances and it looks like this is another.