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New mathematical model shows how the body regulates potassium
- ex3xu 4y agoMatlab files on Github: https://github.com/Layton-Lab/Kregulation https://github.com/Layton-Lab/Kregulation
- xnx 4y agoI'm not sure where the banana = potassium association was established, but it's odd considering that there are many fruits, like strawberries, contain more potassium than bananas per calorie.
- graphe 4y agoHoney I shrunk the kids.
- ROTMetro 4y agoIs the price point per calorie the same? How about storage/transportation? When I could go pick fresh organic strawberries in the field I loved them. Where I am now strawberries are expensive (slightly) flavored expensive cardboard. Bananas are the same both places. They seem like a pretty efficient source, consumed and available world wide with a much longer shelf life. Traveling overseas dried banana chips were one of the cheapest snack foods available everywhere to everyone. Dried strawberries not so much.
- rcme 4y agoA medium banana has 422 mg of K. A strawberry has 18 mg of K. So you'd need to eat like 20+ strawberries to get the same amount of K.
- xnx 4y agoThat's why I shared the number in terms of potassium per calorie and not potassium per fruit.
- oscillonoscope 4y agoMost people don't eat per calorie. They eat to fulfillment which is some combination of volume & weight.
- rcme 4y agoYou posed a question about why bananas are the “go to” potassium fruit compared to strawberries. Eating a single banana is way easier than eating 23 strawberries.
- kzrdude 4y agoStrawberries are "famously calorie free", so it just seems to make a lopsided comparison in the other direction.
- downvotetruth 4y agoThe best pro for strawberries is rather that are available grown in greenhouses where the n_p=19 can be controlled as otherwise they are both are the top of pesticide contamination and use.
- culi 4y agoToday you have to eat 8 oranges to get the same amount of Vitamin A as your great grandpa did.[0] Plant nutrition often has a lot more to do with the soil plants are grown on than the plants themselves. This is especially true with mineral content since plants don't produce minerals [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
- blululu 4y agoI suspect that it is about availability. Strawberries are only available for a few months each year. Bananas are easy to find on the go. Of course eating greens kale/broccoli is cheaper, more nutritious and more traditional so maybe the whole banana = potassium thing is all just some elaborate United Fruit Company marketing scam. *Edit: following up on this, it does look like "banana are a good source of potassium" is indeed a united fruit company marketing myth. Cite 1: https://episodictable.com/potassium/ https://episodictable.com/potassium/ Cite 2: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822031040892&view=1up&seq=7 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822031040892&vi...
- djmips 4y agoStrawberries are too sweet.
- Heston 4y agoIt is a bit odd. Considering you can get 800mg of potassium from a single glass of pomegranate juice. Nowadays everything has large doses of potassium in it due to modern farming practices. They use almost exclusively chemical fertilizer containing potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen.
- snapplebobapple 4y agoIf you like the potassium per calorie of strawberry, check out spinach (~4.76 mg potassium per calorie for strawberries vs ~23 mg per calorie for spinach, plus spinach is loaded with vitamin k and a bunch of other great stuff like magnesium).
- asow92 4y agoAvocados have more potassium than bananas and less glycemic load.
- yeahwhatever10 4y ago"Do not let perfect be the enemy of the good." There's nothing wrong with eating bananas.
- asow92 4y agoDon't get me wrong, I love bananas, but I prefer to stay in ketosis.
- User23 4y agoThat's a good plan if you struggle with insulin resistance, as many do. However if that's not a problem your avocado vs banana choice can freely be based on taste preference.
- asow92 4y agoThat's a lot of people https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-report.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-repor... And "7.2 million Americans – didn’t know they had the condition. Only 11.6 percent of adults with prediabetes knew they had it." How many people think they are able to make this choice based on personal preference while doing harm to their metabolic health? A1C tests are affordable without insurance.
- NoPicklez 4y agoNot that I'm an expert, but surely a large chunk of people developing insulin resistance are doing so because they eat much worse high glycaemic foods than Bananas. 89% were overweight or obese and 38% were physically inactive. I dare say if you looked at the diets of those individuals, it wouldn't include many avocados' or bananas. I think you're splitting hairs.
- pmlnr 4y agoKalium for those who learnt outside of English territory.
- HPsquared 4y agoNot to be confused with natrium.
- GolDDranks 4y agoWhich is called sodium in Anglosphere.
- tedmcory77 4y agoInteresting adaptation - Ultramarathoners can adapt to have very high potassium levels. I remember participating in a study with Dr. Stephen Hammer from Indian River State College where we did blood draws, resting heart rates pre and post ultras and they were joking about how high runner's potassium levels were.
- djmips 4y agoDo they adapt to high potassium levels or are selected for their high potassium levels?
- collyw 4y agomathematical model - pseudoscience
- _8091149529 4y agoI agree with parent (despite the downvotes), there's an ontological mismatch in the title. Mathematical constructs by themselves cannot reveal truths about the physical world. Instead: Mathematical model confirmed by experiment. Or: Old observations elucidated by mathematical model.
- epgui 4y agoThat's some nice philosophizing, but maybe you should read and understand the paper before dismissing it flippantly: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010607 https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...
- rdlw 4y agoI'm not sure I understand, would you say Kepler's laws and the ideal gas law are pseudosience?
- nealabq 4y agoI once consumed a couple of grams of NU-Salt (potassium chloride) in an effort to lower blood pressure. Indeed it works. Also lowers heart rate. And makes your face numb. Use it lightly on food otherwise everything taste metallic. This wasn't a very wise experiment -- I don't recommend it. Injected, KCl can kill you (and is used for executions). I don't know the fatal oral dose, but it's so orally unpleasant you'd probably be vomiting before getting there.
- giardini 4y agoI've taken it for nighttime cramps that wake me from sleep after a strenuous workout. A few shakes of NU-Salt into a 1/2-cup of water, stir and drink. Works fast (within 20 seconds) and lets me sleep.
- TheRealPomax 4y agoSmall reminder that it's not an experiment unless you have a hypothesis, rule out all other variables, and chronicle the results. No clipboard, no experiment.
- patrulek 4y agoI once dosed (orally) 20g of KCl in about one hour. I felt very "lightly" and felt tingling all over my body. It was nice experiment, but not so wise as you already mentioned.
- dheera 4y ago> I don't know the fatal oral dose Probably the reason most OTC potassium supplements (ones sold in the US at least) have FAR less potassium in a single tablet than a banana. It's basically impossible for a adult with healthy function to overdose themselves on potassium with bananas (or coconut water, or avocados) before getting full, but with the tablets it would be much easier to abuse them if they contained even 1 banana's worth per tablet.
- fbdab103 4y agoOral LD50 is ~2.6g/kg, for a fatal dose on the order of 180 grams. Which, indeed, sounds impossible to consume without retching out your guts.
- verisimi 4y ago> Using existing biological data, researchers at the University of Waterloo built a mathematical model that simulates how an average person's body regulates potassium, both in times of potassium depletion and during potassium intake. I guess a mathematical model of how the average body regulates potassium leaves no room for error... right? No chance of causing the problem the think they will fix? > The model could be used for a virtual patient trial, allowing researchers to generate dozens of patients and then predict which ones would have hyper- or hypokalemia based on different controls. Mathematical models, average person, virtual patients, generating dozens of patients... at some point we will get to reality, I hope! It surely does not need repeating that: the map is not the terrain.