Racing Heartbeat

Another description of the racing heartbeat. It is identical to what happens if I drink too much strong coffee. Say, five or six cups of black, unsweetened coffee in a couple of hours (yup, I do that sometimes). In this case, whole-bean breakfast blend that we grind ourselves.

Well, this is "a classic." It happens to me every time I look up the "daily recommended allowance" of just about any vital nutrient, and find out that I am not getting anything like enough of it!

It started with calcium, which the orthopedic surgeon suggested I take after fixing my broken hip 12 years ago. It is almost impossible to consume the recommended daily amount of calcium (1,200mg) just with food, so I've been taking 600mg daily calcium supplement pills for the past decade.

Now, looking at potassium, which (as pointed out by earlier posters) is a factor in cardiac health. The recommended daily allowance seems to be 4,700mg.

• 422mg in one banana (and I should really be eliminating or reducing those to stay low-carb)
• 400mg in half of an avocado (I would be reluctant to eat a whole one daily because of the fat)
• 292mg in one medium tomato
• spinach: confusing data; clearly fairly high-potassium though
• 505mg in one cup of broccoli
• 960mg in one cup of Swiss chard
• salmon seems to be very good (534mg in 3 ounces)

To get to the recommended 4,700mg of potassium just by eating food, and reasonably low-carb food at that, looks like quite a challenge.

What is clear is that in my current diet, there are only some days when I even remotely get enough potassium, according to the guidelines. Those would be days when I have my usual half-avocado for lunch, and then have salmon and broccoli for dinner along with a two-tomato salad! Plus the daily banana that I have been eating (but would like to cut out)! That comes to only about 2,000mg which is less than half of the recommended amount! And that is on a high-potassium day....

"Swiss chard" here we come, I guess.

There is also some interesting stuff about salt. Apparently we are meant to keep some kind of salt-to-potassium ratio. In the modern American diet most people are getting far more salt than potassium, but supposedly it should be the other way around? (I am on a pretty low-salt diet but not zero-salt. I sprinkle it on omelettes and meat, in small quantities.)

Bluetit1802 said:

In the UK when we have our HbA1c blood tests (or routine health checks) we also have our serum liver and kidney function tests at the same time (or should do) One of the renal markers is potassium levels. I have had a total of 16 of these tests since 2011. Each one shows potassium levels bang where they should be according to the reference range on the lab reports. I don't and never have taken potassium supplements, so it must all be coming from food.

This is what the NHS has to say about it.
https://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vitamins-minerals/Pages/Other-vitamins-minerals.aspx#potassium

Note that the recommended amount is 3,500mg.

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Thanks, very useful. I just looked up my renal function test online (see uploaded picture below; note that the date is given American style, i.e. month-day-year). It is the most recent one, done on the day of my T2 diagnosis last February. The glucose (understandably!) was a red flag, but the potassium level was normal. So I have no test, post-low-carb-diet. Will discuss with the doctor when I see him on Wednesday.

I see that calcium was also (very, very slightly) on the low side but I have upped my calcium-supplements since then because of the low-carb diet. (I still eat yoghurt post-diagnosis, but in much smaller quantities, therefore adding daily calcium pills. In the old days I had two medium bowls of Greek yoghurt per day!)

Bluetit1802 said:

Yes, discuss it with your doctor. Your potassium level was within standard, but on the lower end. It is a pity you have no earlier ones to compare.

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The only previous one available online was 2009 (yup, I did not see my doctor for eight years). It was also normal (3.8).

During most of those eight years I suffered from night-time leg cramps. I was eating bananas, having been told by a nurse friend of mine that this might help. Curiously, the leg cramps have vanished since I went on the low-carb diet but I think that is possibly because I am taking far more exercise.

I will discuss the K-levels with my doctor during my appointment on Wednesday.

So, I am starting to think that the potassium issue could be a red herring. Bear with me:

On May 10 of this year, I went to the emergency room with what turned out to be a kidney stone. They tested me for just about everything under the sun. At this point I had been on the very low carb diet for three months.

After quite a lot of digging in my online test reports, I have just discovered that (for some reason) the emergency room ordered a potassium test. The result came in at 4.0. Normal range is between 3.3 and 5.1. My result was actually substantially better than the one on February 1, which was the day of my T2D diagnosis (and by definition, pre-low-carb).

(A picture of the full test result is attached, below, to this post. The date is given in the American format: month/day/year.)

Potassium is a red herring. I had blood tests yesterday and the K level is 3.9, bang in the middle of the normal range. It has actually increased since T2 diagnosis in February, prior to going on the low-carb diet, when it was 3.3.

I have decided to put concerns about the "racing heartbeat" on the back-burner. I have been under a lot of work-related stress, and drinking a lot of coffee (even more than usual), and not getting enough sleep. No point obsessing over a minor, pain-free and relatively infrequent phenomenon.

Thanks a lot for the help with this, though. Education is always useful.