Potassium – The Key Benefits you will get from Potassium while eating Seaweed

What Is Potassium?

Like sodium, potassium is a mineral.

It is present in all body tissue, and it is super important for normal cell function.

It allows your cells to keep normal volumes of intracellular fluid (scientifically known as “cell juice”) and proper transmembrane electrochemical gradients (the bits that move the juice between cells).

Unlike sodium (and according to US National Institutes of Health), potassium is the most abundant of all the intracellular bits. Thankfully, it is naturally present in many foods and available as a dietary supplement as well.

 

Where Can I Get Potassium?

One of the many foods where you can get it is your friendly neighbor, the algae.

Seaweeds collect all metal ions from salt water and concentrate them as carbonate salts in their fronds (Admassu, et al. 2015). This behavior is not unlike crows, collecting shiny objects from unsuspecting backyards.

Their greedy seaweed hands also offer an explanation on why their biomass is sometimes as high as 40%.

Luckily for us, all seaweeds offer an extraordinary level of potassium that is very similar to our natural plasma level. Worldwide research has even indicated that seaweed extract is similar to human blood plasma*.

Aside from good, old potassium, algae are also rich in iodine, iron, magnesium, calcium, selenium, and phosphorus – all human-needed minerals.

 

Why Is Mineral Intake So Important?

Well, minerals keep us alive, for starters.

Minerals, such as the ones in seaweed, are widely used by our system for life-sustaining processes. This is why they are so often sold as health beneficial supplements.

 

How Much Potassium Should I Be Eating?

The recommended nutrient intake for an average adult is 3,8 g a day.

Now, the problem is not how much to eat, but how to get it.

Seaweeds have an average of 0.3-2 grams of potassium per 100 g of algae. If you took 100 g of good seaweed and munched it down, you would already be eating around 60% of the recommended intake.

If you are not impressed enough, the math goes on and on.

In contrast, for instance, 100 g of spinach only have about 500 mg of potassium, and 100 g of milk only has 140mg of potassium. (MacArtain, et al. 2007).

 

What Are the Health Benefits to Potassium Intake?

A potassium-rich diet is linked to many powerful health benefits. Potassium is basically a knight in shining armor protecting the castle of your body.

Cheesy metaphors aside, potassium may help reduce blood pressure and water retention. It also protects against stroke, and it helps prevent osteoporosis and kidney stones.

As it has been said before, minerals like potassium are just overall good fellas that are better obtained through food.

Supplements are not really a great way to increase potassium intake. In fact, it is such a bad idea it needs a whole section of its own to explain why.

 

Why Are Supplements Not Ideal for Potassium Intake?

This practice could potentially kill you.

No, for real.

In many countries, food authorities limit potassium in over-the-counter supplements to 99 mg (which, as a side note, is much less than you could get by just nibbling on some algae or spinach).

This 99-mg limit is likely because many studies have found that high doses of potassium from supplements may damage the gut and even lead to death by heart arrhythmia (FDA, 2018) (which, as a side note, is strikingly less desirable than some algae or spinach).

 

*Interesting Fact about that Plasma…

Japan has used a novel technique of mixing seaweed compounds with water. Doing so has allowed science to even substitute blood in a transfusion. It was successfully tried in over 100 operations (Dhargalkar, et al., 2005). Further research is still needed to determine if it is a good substitute for vegan vampires though.

 

References

Admassu, H., Zhao, W., Yang, R., Gasmalla, M. A., & Alsir, E. (2015). Development Of Functional Foods: Sea Weeds (Algae) Untouched Potential And Alternative Resource-A Review. International Journal of scientific & Technology research, 4(9), 108-115.

Dhargalkar, V. K., Pereira, N., Seaweed : Promising Plant Of The Millennium. Science And Culture 2005, 71(3 - 4). 

National Institutes of Health. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Potassium-HealthProfessional/

FDA, 2018. www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfCFR/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=201.306