3 ms·

> Without a placebo or control group, these numbers aren’t really useful. They are. In general with drugs, you want evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the b

> Without a placebo or control group, these numbers aren’t really useful. They are. In general with drugs, you want evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the benefits outweigh the risks. And double blind studies are the way to go. But potassium salt is just not that risky. I bet Tylenol or Ibuprofen are riskier. These guys put the result out there. They explain the protocol (increase dose only if absolutely comfortable). Some people might try and succeed. Some might try and fail. But it's very unlikely some people will try and suffer a heart attack, or some other dangerous side effect. Of course, please don't take medical advice from me, a random person on the internet. If you decide to try this, it would be best to discuss it first with your physician.

ClassyJacket 4y ago
It's not about safety, it's about knowing whether this is effective. We need a control group to know if it really makes you lose weight.
vorpalhex 4y ago
The question is not "is this a low risk intervention". It's "is this a placebo, an effect of weight tracking, or an effect of potassium?" If it is due to tracking your weight and you just tell people to take potassium, they will not lose weight.
- notahacker 4y ago
  The people that saw the most weight loss were those that also claimed the supplements reduced their appetite looks like supporting evidence for the placebo/weight-tracking effect to me (and if there is an actual mechanism linking potassium intake and appetite, it might be one which only affects the subset of people in a study with a high dropout rate that had something particularly wrong with the levels of potassium in their body and regular diet) The dropout rate is significant too, both in general and in the specific case of this being a self-selecting sample of readers of a blog promoting fringe theories around weight loss(1). One way to get a statistically significant sample for a weight loss treatment being apparently effective is for people to be most likely to drop out of an experiment without submitting any further data the day the scales give them the disappointing news that they've put the pounds they lost back on again. Potassium is apparently already marketed as a weight loss supplement, so I'm guessing there are other studies of varying but generally better quality floating around though... (1)its rather tortuous reasoning why America's obesity rise can't be linked to the rise in average calorie consumption has been posted on here before...
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    > why America's obesity rise can't be linked to the rise in average calorie consumption I think most (certainly not all) folks agree with the general "people gain weight because they're eating too many calories". I think the interesting question is "Why did people seem to start doing this now?" Ice cream and butter and so on are not new inventions. We as a species have never hurt for desserts or calorie dense foods. So what change is it in our environment which seems to be causing the increased intake in calories? And some of the usual suspects that get trotted out: sweetened soft drinks served in huge quantities for basically free, extremely processed foods with surprising calorie density that still leave you hungry, maybe changes in some of the ingrediants we're using, so on. I suspect, given that lots of intelligent people have worked really hard on this and haven't landed on an obvious single answer, that it's a big combination of things. The more I talk to obese people the more I'm convinced there's some sort of sociological or psychological element as well as a food element.
    - landemva 4y ago
      HFCS and seed oils were not consumed in quantity by humans 40 years ago. These seem to be linked to both inflammation and enlarging waists.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      To be honest, 'why, in the century in which most people had cheap, reliable food sources and motorised transport for the first time in history and many stopped doing manual labour did obesity start going up in many countries where people benefited from these changes?' doesn't seem like a question likely to have an especially counterintuitive answer. Ice cream may have existed in various forms for centuries, but the average person didn't eat 20L of the stuff every year before effective and near-universal refrigeration. (The same blog dismissed the standard claims around less healthy refined foods and people not needing as many calories because they lived more sedentary lifestyles anyway...) I'm sure there are individuals with metabolic issues that aren't related to their diet and it's not impossible that the "contaminants" this blog is obsessed with play some role. But I also think that sunspot activity plays some role in climate, and I wouldn't expect to stunning breakthroughs in sunspot science from a climate-skeptic blog motivated primarily by proving that the major step change over the last century that's consistent with the theory and the data can't possibly have made much of a difference...
dec0dedab0de 4y ago
But potassium salt is just not that risky. I bet Tylenol or Ibuprofen are riskier. I doubt it. Potassium chloride is the active ingredient in lethal injections, too much and it will stop your heart.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Too much $anything, and it will stop your $something you need to live. Having said that, most by mouth potassium supplements are delayed release so you don’t get it all at once (and absorption already slows things down a lot).
- toad_master 4y ago
  Too much tylenol will destroy your liver. The dose makes the poison. I've been prescribed potassium chloride tablets before.
- fbdab103 4y ago
  Intravenous potassium is significantly more hazardous than orally consumed. Wikipedia lists the LD50 of oral potassium at 2.6 g/kg. Meaning your standard 70kg dude would have to eat 182 grams (6.4 oz Freedom Units) to hit that limit. Which would be just beyond horrible to attempt to consume that in a sitting.
- scythe 4y ago
  Potassium chloride is used in lethal injections to the tune of 75 mg/kg. For a typical adult, that's an injection of 4-6 grams all at once. You could never eat that much in a sitting: it would taste horrible and probably cause immediate vomiting, and still it's not so readily absorbed through the gut anyway. See: https://research.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/SOP-KCl.pdf https://research.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/SOP-KC...
  - yywwbbn 4y ago
    You could easily eat 4-6 grams (if you wanted to obviously). But absorption us much lower and slower you probably need over hundred grams or so to reach levels that would be lethal

ClassyJacket 4y ago

It's not about safety, it's about knowing whether this is effective. We need a control group to know if it really makes you lose weight.

vorpalhex 4y ago

The question is not "is this a low risk intervention". It's "is this a placebo, an effect of weight tracking, or an effect of potassium?" If it is due to tracking your weight and you just tell people to take potassium, they will not lose weight.

notahacker 4y ago
The people that saw the most weight loss were those that also claimed the supplements reduced their appetite looks like supporting evidence for the placebo/weight-tracking effect to me (and if there is an actual mechanism linking potassium intake and appetite, it might be one which only affects the subset of people in a study with a high dropout rate that had something particularly wrong with the levels of potassium in their body and regular diet) The dropout rate is significant too, both in general and in the specific case of this being a self-selecting sample of readers of a blog promoting fringe theories around weight loss(1). One way to get a statistically significant sample for a weight loss treatment being apparently effective is for people to be most likely to drop out of an experiment without submitting any further data the day the scales give them the disappointing news that they've put the pounds they lost back on again. Potassium is apparently already marketed as a weight loss supplement, so I'm guessing there are other studies of varying but generally better quality floating around though... (1)its rather tortuous reasoning why America's obesity rise can't be linked to the rise in average calorie consumption has been posted on here before...
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  > why America's obesity rise can't be linked to the rise in average calorie consumption I think most (certainly not all) folks agree with the general "people gain weight because they're eating too many calories". I think the interesting question is "Why did people seem to start doing this now?" Ice cream and butter and so on are not new inventions. We as a species have never hurt for desserts or calorie dense foods. So what change is it in our environment which seems to be causing the increased intake in calories? And some of the usual suspects that get trotted out: sweetened soft drinks served in huge quantities for basically free, extremely processed foods with surprising calorie density that still leave you hungry, maybe changes in some of the ingrediants we're using, so on. I suspect, given that lots of intelligent people have worked really hard on this and haven't landed on an obvious single answer, that it's a big combination of things. The more I talk to obese people the more I'm convinced there's some sort of sociological or psychological element as well as a food element.
  - landemva 4y ago
    HFCS and seed oils were not consumed in quantity by humans 40 years ago. These seem to be linked to both inflammation and enlarging waists.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    To be honest, 'why, in the century in which most people had cheap, reliable food sources and motorised transport for the first time in history and many stopped doing manual labour did obesity start going up in many countries where people benefited from these changes?' doesn't seem like a question likely to have an especially counterintuitive answer. Ice cream may have existed in various forms for centuries, but the average person didn't eat 20L of the stuff every year before effective and near-universal refrigeration. (The same blog dismissed the standard claims around less healthy refined foods and people not needing as many calories because they lived more sedentary lifestyles anyway...) I'm sure there are individuals with metabolic issues that aren't related to their diet and it's not impossible that the "contaminants" this blog is obsessed with play some role. But I also think that sunspot activity plays some role in climate, and I wouldn't expect to stunning breakthroughs in sunspot science from a climate-skeptic blog motivated primarily by proving that the major step change over the last century that's consistent with the theory and the data can't possibly have made much of a difference...

dec0dedab0de 4y ago

But potassium salt is just not that risky. I bet Tylenol or Ibuprofen are riskier. I doubt it. Potassium chloride is the active ingredient in lethal injections, too much and it will stop your heart.

Scoundreller 4y ago
Too much $anything, and it will stop your $something you need to live. Having said that, most by mouth potassium supplements are delayed release so you don’t get it all at once (and absorption already slows things down a lot).
toad_master 4y ago
Too much tylenol will destroy your liver. The dose makes the poison. I've been prescribed potassium chloride tablets before.
fbdab103 4y ago
Intravenous potassium is significantly more hazardous than orally consumed. Wikipedia lists the LD50 of oral potassium at 2.6 g/kg. Meaning your standard 70kg dude would have to eat 182 grams (6.4 oz Freedom Units) to hit that limit. Which would be just beyond horrible to attempt to consume that in a sitting.
scythe 4y ago
Potassium chloride is used in lethal injections to the tune of 75 mg/kg. For a typical adult, that's an injection of 4-6 grams all at once. You could never eat that much in a sitting: it would taste horrible and probably cause immediate vomiting, and still it's not so readily absorbed through the gut anyway. See: https://research.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/SOP-KCl.pdf https://research.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/SOP-KC...
- yywwbbn 4y ago
  You could easily eat 4-6 grams (if you wanted to obviously). But absorption us much lower and slower you probably need over hundred grams or so to reach levels that would be lethal