Chloride Group

Potassium Chloride Uses - Benefits and Dangers

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• published: 09 Sep 2016
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Click on the link below for a free video guide to dietary supplements and alternative medicine! http://utahtexans.com/ Maybe you have seen potassium chloride in a dietary supplement or food product and wondered what the heck it is and what does it do. In this video I'm going to talk about benefits and dangers of it. So what is potassium chloride, it's basically a salt substitute and it has a ton of uses. It's used as a fertilizer to help grow a garden. It can be used as a medicine to help someone who has a low amount of potassium in the body. Symptoms of low potassium would be thinks like muscle cramps, nausea, diarrhea, urinating a lot, being very thirsty, confusion, being irritably, and changes to heart rhythm. Most famously it is added as a food additive. It's in food such as canned soups, cereals, sauces, sports drinks it is used instead of salt. It has 2 main purposes, and the first one is to reduce the sodium content in food as a replacement for salt. This is good because too much salt causes problems. Adults need less than 1 gram a day and some people estimate that the average person in the U.S. gets over 8 grams a day. This is because it is in so much food as a preservative to keep it from going bad. Reducing your salt intact will reduce high blood pressure. High blood pressure is bad because it's a silent killer that causes heart disease, strokes and other bad things like the kidneys and even the brain. In fact I had a good friend of mine become paralyzed in half of his face due to high blood pressure. He is young and it happened out of the blue. The second reason it is in food is to give potassium to someone. Like I mentioned if someone is suffering from a deficiency then potassium chloride pills might be prescribed. Those are the 2 positives of it so you might be wondering is there any dangers. The biggest danger is really consuming too much of it, which is very hard to do. This could lead to something called hyperkalemia where there is too much potassium in the body. Symptoms are very similar to having low potassium, like weakness, wanting to throw up, chest pains, abnormal heart rhythms and even paralysis depending on how much potassium in your body. If you are wondering how much potassium chloride you would have to take to get too much potassium. Well humans need at least almost 5 grams of potassium a day. Humans get over 8 grams of salt a day. Considering how much salt is in food yea it's nearly impossible to overdose on potassium chloride. Usually hyperkalemia is caused from kidney disease. Also, if for some reason you take too much, you could get an upset stomach, and want to vomit. No surprise there right? Lastly, in it's natural state this substance is a white powder. It can irritate the skin, eyes and nose if inhaled.