Insulin drives potassium into cells. Therefore, there is less potassium in the blood.
If you eat something sweet, insulin will be released and your blood potassium levels will go down.
And vice versa. If there is nothing, then there will be little insulin in the blood, there will be no one to drive potassium into the cells, and the level of potassium will rise.
When something falls apart
Potassium sits inside the cells. If the cells are destroyed, then potassium is released into the blood. Cells will be destroyed literally by trauma, by some kind of chemotherapy or by severe hypothermia.
Exercise stress
During exercise, potassium is released from working muscles into the blood. This is normal.
It is believed that this is good for the muscles.
The fact is that if potassium does not just float in the blood, but floats somewhere near the muscles, then the blood vessels in the muscles themselves expand. This is good for the muscles.
It turns out that potassium increases during exercise, but not in any vein that comes across, but in that arm and or leg that is currently exercising. It is interesting.
It is also interesting that after the end of physical activity, the level of potassium in the blood tends to return to normal so quickly that it sinks too low by inertia. From this, after exercise, there may be a slightly reduced level of potassium in the blood. If such a person is not all right with the heart, then from a sharp drop in potassium there may be a violation of the heart rhythm.
Kidney problems
The kidneys normally excrete potassium, so kidney disease can lead to high levels of potassium in the blood. It should be noted here that our kidneys, even being sick, continue to heroically fight high levels of potassium. If the kidneys are still able to excrete urine, they usually do it and keep the potassium in check.
Other reasons
There are a lot of different diseases, side effects of different drugs and all that. Sometimes many small factors add up and the potassium rises.
The main thing of all this
- Sometimes it just seems that potassium is elevated. This may be a mistake in the analyzes.
- It is very difficult to overeat with potassium.
- If potassium is constantly elevated, it is more likely that something is wrong with the kidneys.
Read more about potassium.
