Can potassium help extract salt from the body?!
Question: Can potassium help extract salt from the body.?
Can potassium help extract salt from the body.? If I took potassium in a tablet form.? I am trying to get grid of the water that my body retains. Although I drink 3 liters daily, I still feel as if my body is retaining water. I am 40 years of age and losing weight has become a battle. Before turning 40 I could lose weight quickly. Now I don't know if it's water weight or what.?! I am working-out with a personal trainer and I've totally changed my diet, it's been 6 weeks and I've not lost a pound! I want to just give up, but I know I can't.Health Question & Answer
Answers:
There is so much misinformation out there it drives me crazy.
Before you start 'extracting' salt from your body....
Low salt levels in the blood drive potassium out of the cells. This creates an osmotic imbalance which draws sodium inside the cells where it pulls water with it so, in effect the cells actually become water logged, but the person is actually dehydrated to some degree (low fluid volume in extracellular fluid).
Many people with fluid retention actually need some sodium along with potassium to drive the water back out from the cells and into the extracellular fluid.
Taking potassium could drive sodium out of the body, but this would be counterproductive as mentioned above, you could become more waterlogged.
Don't listen to some of these no brainers who read one text book and see the line "salt retains water in the body" and think they know everything. Health Question & Answer
Before you start 'extracting' salt from your body....
Low salt levels in the blood drive potassium out of the cells. This creates an osmotic imbalance which draws sodium inside the cells where it pulls water with it so, in effect the cells actually become water logged, but the person is actually dehydrated to some degree (low fluid volume in extracellular fluid).
Many people with fluid retention actually need some sodium along with potassium to drive the water back out from the cells and into the extracellular fluid.
Taking potassium could drive sodium out of the body, but this would be counterproductive as mentioned above, you could become more waterlogged.
Don't listen to some of these no brainers who read one text book and see the line "salt retains water in the body" and think they know everything. Health Question & Answer
Yes it would. Health Question & Answer