Impact of High Potassium on Heart Health

In recent years, where health trends and dietary advice are just a click away, it is easy to get caught up in the “influencer-recommended” latest wellness finds. While many of these trends, such as the rising popularity of potassium-rich foods like avocados and zucchini, can offer health benefits, it is essential to be cautious.

As with anything, balance is key. While potassium is essential for maintaining heart health, it can also have unintended consequences. Even though some information might be given by doctors or trained professionals, not all online advice comes from verified experts. Hence, understanding how high levels of potassium affect the heart is crucial for making informed dietary choices.

The risk is even greater for those with chronic kidney disease (CKD) or other underlying conditions. But how does too much potassium affect the heart? Let’s walk through the guide to explore these critical questions and discuss the physical, mental, and financial toll that excessive potassium can take if left untreated.

Let’s Decode Potassium

Every single function in your body relies on potassium. This mineral also facilitates the movement of waste products and nutrients among the cells in your body, thereby supporting the health of your heart, muscles, and nerves.

Potassium generally serves a plethora of purposes, all of which are extremely crucial. However, excessive consumption can take a significant toll on your health. To sum things up, consuming the appropriate dosage of potassium:

• Enables the heart's muscles, among others, to contract in response to stimuli and the nervous system to process and respond to that stimulation.
• Suppresses the effects of high blood pressure that sodium (existing in table salt) can cause.
• Regulates your blood pressure
• Prevents cardiovascular disease, cardiac arrest, and stroke
• Prevents osteoporosis
• Wards off kidney stones, etc.

However, if you already have some specific pre-existing heart ailments or have undergone heart surgery in the last 7 years, you can opt for the Care Heart Health Insurance Plan, which provides comprehensive coverage without any pre-medical examination.

How Does Potassium Imbalance Affect Your Health?

Imbalances generally indicate deficiency or surplus. Having less than 3.6 mmol per litre of potassium in the blood refers to a condition popularly termed hypokalemia, 6, and an excess is known as hyperkalemia. Interestingly, a potassium deficiency may not generally be caused by imbalances in your diet.

This generally happens when the body loses excessive potassium due to consistently diarrhoea or vomiting. Moreover, certain medications make you pee more often (diuretics), and cause a loss of potassium. Depending on how low your potassium levels are, you may come across some of these symptoms-

• Mild Deficiency: Occurs at 3-3.5mmol/l. It does not exhibit any usual symptoms.
• Moderate Deficiency: Occurs at 2.5 to 3 mmol/l. Some of the signs include muscle pain, cramps, discomfort, and weakness.
• Severe Deficiency: Occurs at less than 2.5 mmol/l. Some of the symptoms are paralysis and an abnormal/irregular heartbeat.

Hyperkalemia and Symptoms of Hyperkalemia

The cells in the human body contain nearly 98% of potassium. If we break this down, 80% of them are found in the skeletal muscles and around 20% in bones, RBCs, and liver. 2

As stated before, a wide range of physiological functions in your body rely on this mineral. It helps regulate fluid levels, heart contractions, and other processes. However, anything excess is poison. Hence, understanding how excess potassium affects the heart becomes crucial.

Hyperkalemia, aka excessive potassium, occurs when the potassium levels in the blood rise over the normal range of 3.5 to 5.0 mmol/L.3 One major cause behind this is Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). While urinating, the waste materials and excess fluids are filtered out from your blood through kidneys. However, this normal kidney function may be compromised in case your kidneys are damaged or impaired.

Some additional factors that can lead to hyperkalemia include:

• Using drugs/medications that inhibit the typical excretion of potassium
• Addison’s disease
• Uncontrolled and unmanaged diabetes
• Consuming a diet rich in potassium whilst having an advanced chronic kidney disease.

Here are some common symptoms associated with this condition.

• Chest pain
• Muscle weakness or fatigue
• Numbness or tingling sensations
• Heart palpitations or irregular heartbeat
• Nausea and vomiting
• Difficulty breathing

Note that hyperkalemia can be difficult to identify without blood tests since it does not always exhibit obvious symptoms, particularly in mild cases.

Is Hyperkalemia Contagious?

No. Hyperkalemia cannot be passed on or transmitted from one individual to another. However, sometimes hyperkalemia can be caused by hereditary/genetic disorders. These cases are quite rare. Some examples are:

• Pseudohypoaldosteronism type 1 (PHA1): This is typically caused by a mutation in the gene that normally helps in sodium regulation.
• Pseudohypoaldosteronism type 2 (PHA2): Also known as ‘Gordon’s syndrome’, this is caused by a genetic mutation that supports blood pressure regulation.

How Much Potassium Do You Need Per Day?

For healthy adult men, 3,400 milligrams (mg) of potassium a day is considered enough. As for healthy adult women, 2,600 mg a day is considered adequate. 4

However, the amount of potassium that you need to consume daily entirely depends on your age and sex. Listed below is a tabular representation 4 that suggests the consumption amount for each age group and sex.

To meet the recommended consumption during pregnancy, a female needs at least 2,900 mg of potassium. Consequently, while breastfeeding, new mothers should consume around 2,800 mg of potassium to maintain the mineral balance in the body. 4

However, this mineral should come from a healthy, well-balanced diet that also gives you a lot of other nutrients like vitamins and minerals. Some excellent yet natural sources of potassium include:

• Fruits: Orange, banana, papaya, avocado, guava
• Vegetables: Spinach, sweet potatoes, broccoli, moringa (drumstick)
• Legumes: Kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas
• Dairy: Milk, yoghourt
• Fish: Salmon, tuna
• Nuts and Seeds: Almonds, sunflower seeds

Sometimes, in cases where natural sources fail to provide sufficient nutrients, doctors may suggest certain supplements.

How does Hyperkalemia affect the Heart?

Treating hyperkalemia becomes extremely crucial as it can lead to life-threatening complications. By now, you must be aware your heart's normal functioning depends on potassium. In particular, it instead improves your heart's electrical signalling.

To pump blood into your heart and throughout your body, heart muscle (myocardium) contracts and relaxes continuously. Hyperkalemia, or elevated potassium levels, significantly affects this function, making heart health vulnerable. However, the question remains how does high potassium affect your heart? Well, here’s how:

Arrhythmia

When potassium levels shoot up, they interfere with the heart's electrical signals, which can cause irregular heartbeats, often known as arrhythmias. This can cause the heart to beat abnormally, too fast, or too slowly. This elevates the potential risk of cardiac arrest or heart failure.

Muscle Function

Potassium is essential for the contraction of all muscles, including those in the heart. Hyperkalemia can weaken the heart muscle and cause conditions like chest discomfort, palpitations, and shortness of breath.

Grave Complications

Untreated potassium levels over6.5 mmol/L 5 can cause cardiac arrest and death.

Takeaway

Maintaining balanced potassium levels is highly essential for heart health. It’s not just deficiencies that pose a risk; excessive potassium can lead to serious consequences as well. However, these health issues do not end up creating an impact on the physical body only.

When considering the effect of increased potassium on the heart, it becomes evident that elevated potassium levels can disrupt normal heart function. Consequently, when these medical conditions escalate into chronic health issues, extended hospital stays and other medical expenditures can put a heavy financial strain on you. Eventually, the added stress of managing both health problems and mounting bills becomes extremely overwhelming. That’s where health insurance comes in.

Investing in a heart health insurance plan ensures that you are not only covered for unwanted emergencies but also protected from financial traumas. Even for someone with a heart condition, investing in the Care Heart Health Insurance is possible. It is a wise and prudent precaution that provides peace of mind along with financial stability when life gets tough.

Disclaimers: All plan features, benefits, coverage, and claims underwriting are subject to policy terms and conditions. Kindly refer to the brochure, sales prospectus, and policy documents carefully.