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out of all the nutrients that our body

needs potassium is at the very top of

the list as far as the huge requirements

we’re talking 4 700 milligrams no other

nutrient comes even close to that now

the question is why why do we need so

much potassium because potassium

fulfills a very very important enzyme

that’s involved in the sodium potassium

pump this pump is in all of your nerve

cells it’s in all of your muscle cells

it is the pump that establishes the

battery of our cells we need this pump

to move electrical impulses we also need

this pump for muscle contraction that

are in your arteries we need it in the

heart for the heart muscle as well as in

your kidney and today we’re going to

talk about the consequences of not

having enough potassium in our diet but

there’s some new information I want to

share with you from a paper entitled

achieving the benefits of a high

potassium

Paleolithic diet without the toxic City

apparently thousands of years ago in the

Stone Age

humans have consumed a lot more than 4

700 milligrams in fact there’s evidence

to show that humans consumed up to 15

000 milligrams of potassium every single

day that’s four times the current rdas

which is still quite High 4 700 and then

if we look at the relationship of

potassium to sodium with those levels

we’re talking 16 times more potassium

than sodium so there’s some really

interesting incredible data the show

that we need even more potassium than we

really think and what backs that up is

the kidney our kidneys have a very

robust capacity to get rid of excess

potassium but not sodium but potassium

so sometimes people say that oh yeah

potassium is bad for the kidneys it can

create problems that’s only in like

stage five kidney disease which is

end-stage kidney disease if you take

large amounts of potassium before you

get kidney disease it actually has been

shown to be protective against kidney

disease I mean the average person

consumes like 1.5 cups of vegetables

which are the primary source potassium

and no you’re not going to get a lot of

potassium from bananas bananas have

roughly about 300 milligrams so you’d

have to eat a lot of bananas to get your

fulfillment of potassium and of course

bananas have a lot of fructose which

comes with other issues potatoes are

also supposed to have a lot of potassium

but of course the starch creates other

issues one medium-sized potato has about

600 milligrams of potassium but just one

cup of leafy greens is between

500 to 800 milligrams that’s one cup and

if you consumed like five seven or even

10 cups well that would give you a

tremendous amount of potassium the point

is we need a lot of potassium we

probably need more than we’re consuming

unfortunately the average person is not

consuming enough potassium from the diet

and you might say well maybe they’re

getting it from their supplements right

well the majority of supplements only

give you like between 49 to at the very

most 99 milligrams per tablet so how

many pillows would you have to take per

day to even get your daily requirement

of potassium well you’d have to have 47

pills okay 47 bills no one’s going to do

that if we look at a potassium

deficiency it’s often missed it’s

omitted because most of the potassium is

inside the cell like 98 so you can’t

accurately determine if you have a low

potassium situation just by the blood

because most of the potassium is inside

the cell you would have to do a

different type of test called an

intracellular potassium test not to

mention the symptoms of a potassium

deficiency are sometimes very vague

especially in the beginning you might

have a little bit of weakness in your

diaphragm that affects your breathing a

little bit it’s hard to breathe you

might feel a little fatigue you might

have heart palpitations but these are

all just early signs of a potassium

deficiency but eventually as that

deficiency becomes worse you can develop

high blood pressure you can actually

have an increased risk of stroke you can

get fluid retention you can even get

loss of bone and kidney stones because

potassium helps keep calcium out of the

arteries and out of the urine because

sometimes when people get their urine

tested they have high levels of calcium

in their urine which is you know kind of

an environment to form a kidney stone as

you can see potassium is really really

important and it can create a lot of

problems now there’s some interesting

reasons why people are deficient that go

beyond just not consuming enough greens

if you take penicillin that can create a

potassium deficiency or diuretics or

steroids or go through chronic stress or

have higher levels of insulin with a

high carb diet another interesting

reason why people are deficient is even

going on the ketogenic diet so let’s say

for example you start the ketogenic diet

which is a low carb diet and you’re

going into this already deficient in

potassium and you take no potassium

electrolytes or supplements right what

happens is potassium helps you store

glycogen that’s that stuff in your liver

and your muscles stored sugar so as you

use that up what comes with that is a

lot of water release and a loss of

potassium as well so if you don’t take

potassium when you start the ketogenic

diet you may end up with a potassium

deficiency from that reason but also you

have if you’re fasting for like three or

four days right and you don’t take

supplements especially electrolytes like

potassium trace minerals or B vitamins

and you’re doing this prolong fast you

can start having problems from that not

to mention let’s say you fasted for

three or four or five days and then you

eat too much too quickly and then you

also ate too many carbohydrates that’s

called refeeding syndrome which is a

severe potassium deficiency now I’m not

going to get into the details but it can

create a sudden shift of potassium from

your blood right into the cell and you

can end up with a serious low potassium

problem which could be dangerous did you

realize that the average person in the

U.S consumes like 60 percent of their

calories from Ultra processed foods

where they strip the nutrients out I

mean let’s just take Doritos for example

I used to love Doritos I would consume

huge bags of Doritos in college I mean

just massive amounts and the next

morning I would end up with all sorts of

fluid retention in my fingers and my

feet and at the time I had no

information about health I was the worst

so back then I think they put 11

ingredients in these Doritos and now

it’s I think up to 30 ingredients

different flavors that just make it

taste like you’re dipping a taco with

hot wings into ranch dressing and so is

there a lot of potassium in Doritos now

there’s a lot of sodium in all these

fast food restaurants so it gives you

this flavoring which is kind of

Addicting so you eat too much of it and

then you end up with the potassium

deficiency so all these fast food

restaurants as you see them as you’re

driving on the street are just pumping

out empty calories filled with a lot of

sodium very little nutrients if anything

practically zero potassium and you can

see it too if you watch people coming

out of these these restaurants and look

at their eyes it’s all swollen around

the eyes they don’t look healthy they’re

also going to lose the power of their

cellular batteries so they’re going to

be walking around tired and each one of

those symptoms will then probably be

addressed by a separate drug so they’re

on high blood pressure medication

they’re on a blood thinner they’re

probably taking high energy drinks and

of course a diuretic for the edema and

the high blood pressure which causes

further potassium deficiencies I

challenge you do this experiment with

your own body start consuming

a lot of high potassium foods okay a lot

of leafy greens just for a week and if

you don’t like greens just you can make

shakes blend kale with blueberries

there’s a lot of different recipes but

start to increase more potassium-rich

foods and just notice how many of these

problems start disappearing and if you

wanted a really good demo on what this

potassium requirement looks like in

actual food I did a video on that so

check that out I put it up right here