What are the precautions for intravenous potassium supplementation?

The hot summer is here. Because the weather is hot, the human body will sweat a lot. At this time, the potassium in the human body will be excreted with the sweat. In this case, the human body needs an appropriate amount of potassium supplement. Potassium supplementation can be done by injecting potassium or by daily food. There are some issues to pay attention to for intravenous potassium supplementation. What are the precautions for intravenous potassium supplementation? Let’s take a look at it next.

1. Precautions for intravenous potassium supplementation

(1) Urine volume: Urine volume should be above 30 ml/h.

(2) Concentration: The concentration of potassium chloride generally does not exceed 0.3%, that is, no more than 30 ml of potassium chloride should be added to 1000 ml of 10% glucose solution. Too high a concentration will cause severe irritation to the veins and cause pain. Excessively high concentrations can also inhibit the myocardium and cause cardiac arrest. Special attention should be paid to the absolute prohibition of direct intravenous injection.

(3) Speed: Not too fast. For adults, intravenous infusion should not exceed 60 drops/minute.

(4) Total amount: The daily potassium supplement should be calculated accurately. For general fasting patients without any additional losses, 30 ml of 10% potassium chloride is appropriate. For those with severe potassium deficiency, it should not exceed 6-8g/d.

Among the above four items, urine volume is the most important.

2. What foods should I eat to supplement potassium?

Green leafy vegetables contain more potassium than bananas

Representative foods: spinach, water spinach, amaranth, and kale.

The potassium content in yellow and orange fruits and vegetables is very high. Bananas, oranges, mangoes, yellow bell peppers, etc. are all good at supplementing potassium.

In addition, the potassium content of many fresh vegetables is comparable to that of bananas, such as spinach, water spinach, amaranth, kale, rapeseed, and purple-backed amaranth. Eating one pound of fresh green leafy vegetables every day can meet half of your potassium needs.

Moreover, these dark green vegetables are rich in carotene, riboflavin, vitamin C and various phytochemicals, and have high nutritional value.

If you supplement potassium through green leafy vegetables, you also need to pay attention to balancing the vitamins in them. Therefore, it is still better to focus on cold dishes and quick stir-frying. For example, stir-fried water spinach and blanched kale are home-cooked dishes. Use less salt and oil and cook at low temperature.

When choosing vegetables, in addition to paying attention to high potassium, you also need to pay attention to low sodium. Asparagus, amaranth, rapeseed, etc. have relatively high potassium content and low sodium content, and have a high "potassium-sodium ratio", making them good choices for us to supplement potassium.

Mushrooms and seaweed are indispensable

Representative foods: shiitake mushrooms, seaweed, white fungus, and kelp.

In daily diet, a low-sodium diet comes first, and the second is to supplement potassium. The potassium content of many foods is reduced during food processing, while large amounts of sodium are added, reducing the potassium:sodium ratio.

Therefore, natural ingredients should be the main ingredients in our daily diet. In addition to fresh vegetables and fruits which are good sources of potassium, shiitake mushrooms, seaweed, kelp, etc. also contain more potassium.

Fungal foods such as mushrooms are rich in nutrients and have high potassium content. For example, the potassium content in every 100 grams of dried shiitake mushrooms is 464 mg. Fungal foods such as Tremella and Auricularia auricula not only contain fungal polysaccharides that help the body improve immunity and delay aging, but also have very high potassium content, which is 3 to 4 times that of dried shiitake mushrooms.

Potassium is not affected by cooking methods, so mushroom soups, stir-fries, and black fungus salads can all supplement potassium and are very beneficial to the body.

3. Notes

It should be noted that although seaweed such as laver and kelp are rich in potassium, their sodium content is also high, especially laver. Care should be taken to use less salt when cooking.