low potassium levels and fatal outcomes

Poking around the internet while sleepless at about two AM, found this very interesting article title: Research warns of risks of low potassium in heart failure patients with chronic kidney disease. I do not so far have any kidney disease, but when i spent a few days in the local excuse for a hospital a month or so ago, i found the words congestive heart disease on some papers i got a look at while waiting for some doctor to appear. Those words were not on my discharge papers, but i think it likely they represented somebody's best guess about what is ailing me. Anyway, i did find the article gruesomely informative.

[phys.org]

brief excerpt: "The UAB researchers studied data from 1,044 patients with heart failure and CKD in the Digitalis Investigation Group study, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health. Normal potassium levels were expressed at between 4 and 4.9 mEq/L. Mild hypokalemia was defined as between 3.5 to 3.9 mEq/L and low hypokalemia as below 3.5 mEq/L.

Death occurred in 48 percent of the patients with hypokalemia during the 57-month follow-up period, compared with only 36 percent of patients with normal potassium. The vast majority of subjects, 87 percent, had mild hypokalemia. Hospitalization also was slightly higher for subjects with low potassium, 59 percent compared with 53 percent for those with normal potassium levels.

Read more at: [phys.org]

PeggyM

Hi Peggy,

Hmm, when I talked to my primary care doc when I first had afib and an inkling that low potassium might be an issue, he asked why all of his patients who were on diuretics that lowered their K+ didn't have afib. I responded they must not have the right genes. In any case, I'm wondering if the low K+ might be due to diuretics (though extra K+ is usually prescribed) as diuretics are commonly prescribed for congestive heart disease (CHF).

When my late mother went from cooking her own meals from scratch to assisted living for dementia care, the high sodium meals put her into CHF. She needed oxygen, where she didn't before. Once we added a diuretic (with extra mag & K+ at my insistence), she no longer needed oxygen. Her doc said her prior way of cooking/eating probably delayed the onset of CHF by a number of years.

Cheers,

George

Hello George. So far no diuretics have been prescribed to me, tho they probably will be. There was some argument among these "doctors" concerning just what was wrong with me. My guess is that the one who thought it might be CHF lost the argument. Whoever won, somebody apparently thought i was just taking too high a dose of all my prescribed medications so he/she cut them all in half to see what would happen.

The night shift nurses gave back the full dose of my sleeping med because they like their patients to go to sleep at night so the nursing staff can attend to the other various duties they need to carry out on that shift.

Apparently the person who gave the order to cut all medications by half had no clue that it was a bad idea to abruptly drop the dosage of metoprolol, because when i subsequently went into afib they were all acting very surprised, even panicked, and seemed at a loss what to do. As i may have mentioned, my heart rate is very high while in afib. You can imagine i was very strongly suggesting they resume the prescribed dose of metoprolol, and after some discussion it was decided to do just that, along with some more, and eventually the afib went back to sweet NSR. I will certainly try to avoid this hospital in future.

PeggyM

<[www.sciencedaily.com]

Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have found that a daily dose of beetroot juice significantly improved exercise endurance and blood pressure in elderly patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFPEF).

Exercise intolerance -- shortness of breath and fatigue with normal amounts of exertion -- is the primary symptom of HFPEF and is due partly to non-cardiac factors that reduce oxygen delivery to active skeletal muscles. HFPEF is a recently recognized disease that reflects how the left ventricle of the heart pumps with each beat. It occurs primarily in older women and is the dominant form of heart failure, as well as the most rapidly increasing cardiovascular disorder in this country.

Emerging evidence suggests that dietary inorganic nitrate supplementation has beneficial effects on blood pressure control, vascular health, exercise capacity and oxygen metabolism.

Hi Peggy - I'm late responding. I'm so sorry to read about your recent hospital stay.

George mentions the beet juice and improvement in elderly with heart failure. Beet juice is a good source of nitric oxide (chemical symbol NO) which helps significantly with heart failure and other related symptoms. Actually, using the supplements.. either L-arginine or L-citrulline have been used for that purpose as outlined in the book written by the pharmacologist who, with two other researchers, won the Nobel Prize in 1998 for work on nitric oxide and heart health.

Book: NO More Heart Disease: How Nitric Oxide Can Prevent--Even Reverse--Heart Disease and Strokes You can go to this link on Amazon and use the Look Inside feature to read quite a bit. There is also an abundance of info online if you Google, his name and nitric oxide.

Start here: Recap: Why Nitric Oxide Is a Crucially Important Molecule in the Cardiovascular System
[www.drignarro.com]

The NO science has advanced so rapidly that the latest Louis Ignarro book, The New Heart Health (2013) seems important to read as well. Co-authored by Naturopathic physician, Dr. Andrew Myers, which is a great combination.
Also has the Look Inside feature. [www.amazon.com]

The book, The Nitric Oxide (NO) Solution by Nathan S. Bryan, PhD and Janet Jand, OMD... that continues the NO story about heart benefits.

While I don't have high blood pressure, I've been using the NO protocol (arginine) for almost 2 years and last year switched to using L-citrulline based on all the science provided by the nitric oxide research and increasing popularity.
Here's a clip:

Citrulline and arginine scientific studies

In the first study to show that oral supplementation with citrulline raises blood levels of arginine, 20 healthy volunteers were given 6 different dosing regimens of placebo, citrulline, and arginine.

After one week of oral supplementation, the citrulline dose increased plasma arginine concentration more effectively than arginine alone.8

A study in humans also showed the citrulline supplementation’s “time release” effect on arginine production. In this study an oral dose of 3.8 grams of citrulline resulted in a 227% peak increase in plasma arginine levels after 4 hours, compared with a 90% peak increase with the same dose of arginine.7,9

Thus, acute oral administration of citrulline appears to be considerably more efficient at raising plasma levels of arginine over the long term than arginine itself.7

Reduces blood pressure
In another recent study, citrulline supplementation was shown to reduce blood pressure in 17 young (average age 21.6 years) men with normal blood pressure after they were submitted to a cold pressor test (CPT). (A cold pressor test is a cardiovascular test done by having the subject immerse his hand into a bucket of ice water for one minute. Blood pressure and heart rate are then evaluated.)

Even more importantly, new studies are showing that supplemental citrulline also assists in nitric oxide production by boosting blood levels of arginine.

The men were randomly assigned to four weeks of oral citrulline (6 grams/day) or placebo in a crossover design. Blood pressure was measured after the blood pressor test. The results showed that compared to placebo, oral citrulline decreased brachial systolic blood pressure (-6 +/- 11 mm Hg), aortic systolic blood pressure (-4 +/- 10 mm Hg), and aortic pulse pressure (-3 +/- 6 mm Hg) during CPT but not at rest, suggesting improved production of
nitric oxide under stress.10 [www.smart-publications.com]


You can also check some of the links related to this Google search on NO therapy and the name, Professor Dan Hammer, who has his easy-to-follow NO protocols. Eliminating Heart Disease Naturally Thru Nitric Oxide Therapy [www.google.com] His website gives a good recap of the NO story and successes. and also this link: [danhammerhealth.com] for the high blood pressure protocol. [www.seas.upenn.edu]

Conference Room 49 discussed arginine in 2006 as well.

Hope this isn't overwhelming, but it's so important, I wanted to share some of the highlights from my resources with you.
Let me know if I can help you find or research specifics, Peggy, and I certainly wish you success in turning this around.

Best to you,
Jackie