The Purpose of Potassium – Dr.Berg

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okay we’re going to talk about a very important mineral potassium okay why is it so important well number one because we need so much of it um out of all the N nutrients vitamin A vitamin B calcium magnesium potassium being a mineral is needed in large amounts I’m talking 4700 milligrams okay it’s used in all the cellular reactions it’s also used to store your sugar in your liver and your muscle now let’s explain what I mean by that uh stored sugar is a a good thing we need to store some sugar um to be able to handle quick release of energy and glucose being the molecule of sugar um if you stick them together in a group they’re called glycogens so glycogen is the storage of glucose mainly in the liver mainly in the muscles and it’s used like you know it’s very instant so you can regulate that so we need that um it just so happens potassium is the mineral that allows glucose to be stored as glycogen so for every glucose molecule you need one potassium molecule or element so that’s one thing okay so let’s say you’re deficient in potassium um that means you’re not going to store the glucose as well so if you don’t store glucose your body then stores more fat yeah so that’s interesting so a couple other points um where do you get your potassium mainly from vegetables but you can even get it from animal proteins as well but uh you know like the greens the leafy greens beet tops are really high avocados are very very large amounts in avocados um so how do we know we’re getting enough potassium well one cup of greens vegetable or um salads on average equal uh one oun okay one cup equals 1 ounce and you need 4700 so you’re going to you’re going to need about between 8 and 10 ounces or eight seven well actually seven to 10 cups okay or 7 to 10 ounces that would be like one of those uh salad containers or bags of salad that you see at the grocery store just need one of those per day it’s not too much right um when you take a cup of salad I’m not talking about like pack it down extremely tight just kind of like put it in there like a good handful that’s like one cup or 1 ounce you need at least seven up to 10 I consume more than that I consume probably 20 so it doesn’t hurt if you have more because the kidneys will also get rid of anything that’s too much especially when it comes down potassium a lot of people supplement potassium because it’s hard to get the potassium and they get it straight into the body and also in certain conditions um you need more potassium to improve these conditions one is rheumatoid arthritis big time you go up into the 6,000 7,000 milligrams you can really put those symptoms in remission another one is diabetes or insulin resistance why because insulin does control it’s like the door that allows insulin uh potassium to go in the cell so insulin controls the level of potassium and um when you have insulin resistance you can’t pull that potassium in the cell so if you don’t pull potassium in the cell you have a lot of problems to make a long story short uh and make it really simple if you increase more potassium in the diet you decrease the stress on the insulin dysfunction you decrease the need for insulin so having a little more will actually help insulin resistance and diabetes okay so they both work kind of like a teeter totter um if you have enough potassium you won’t have sugar Cravings why because you’re going to store the sugar and you’re going your body you’re going to have better blood sugar levels because potassium stabilizes blood sugars so you don’t have this dip down so potassium helps blood sugars insulin dysfunction and cravings for sweets if you crave for sweet we know you’re pottassium deficient so we need more potassium um when I consume a meal I always have the vegetable first not at the end of the meal why because I’ve experimented if I do the protein first I tend to keep eating more and more protein there’s like no turnoff switch versus the vegetable first which gives me the potassium and it kind of turns off that hunger and and I don’t eat as much protein my son for example he’ll sit down and eat chicken wings he can eat I’m talking like massive quantities so I get him to have the vegetable first and he doesn’t need as much protein because we just need like 3 to six ounces so I always have the vegetable first for that reason when you consume potassium you help get uh you balance the sodium okay so we need this potassium sodium ratio so we need four times as much potassium as sodium and that’s why we need this most people have way too much sodium and not enough potassium so they’re going to retain fluid when you have low potassium retain fluid and your salt sensitive high blood pressure if you take pottassium your blood pressure comes right down probably is in in many cases the cause of high blood pressure low potassium now as you do a ketogenic diet that’s real low carbs it’s low carbs and you’re going to dip a lot of fluid because one of the things one one thing is that carbs especially refined carbohydrates sugars cause retention of fluid okay because when you consume carbohydrate you also deplete your potassium so when you have like cakes and cookies and sugar and donuts and Breads and pasta you you’re automatically depleting the potassium now why is that well because in nature sugar cane is probably one of the one of the highest things with potassium that you could consume not one of the highest but it’s very very high okay so there’s a lot of pottassium in sugar cane but what they do is they refine it and they get rid of the potassium and other minerals like iron into molasses and they put as white refined sugar and brown sugar as a really depleted potassium deficient sweetener when you consume this refined sweetener over here without the mineral you tend to your body almost like starts deplete it’s a potassium depleter it’s almost like your body will start um trying to recombine that glucose with sugar and starts pulling from reserves so in other words to make a long story short when you consume sugar I’m trying to make this really simple when you consum refined sugar junk food you’re depleting your potassium and you’re you’re increasing your sodium and you’re increasing your fluid retention so when we cut that out you dump a lot of fluid okay so you can you can drop a lot of weight in one week um that’s good but you better put your potassium back in there because um um if you’re dumping a lot of fluid you need to put the um the hydration back in there so you have the volume of fluid not just water you need the electrolytes okay that help the con so when people do the ketogenic diet and they feel really tired boy you just need to add a little potassium and boom the energy comes up sometimes a little sodium um even with low blood pressure you know you need potassium and sodium to help get more fluid in there not just water so our bodies need fluid um okay so I wanted to just give you an overview of potassium and what it can do and how important it is so make sure you eat your vegetables on this program thanks for watching