Thread: Minerals

Originally Posted by maxmuscle1

I would have to look some of my past stuff. I’ll look it up.

Max

Will do. I will search for them.

Today we are talking about salt and potassium!

Salt is made of two minerals, sodium and chloride.

Sodium, chloride, and potassium are all so closely related to one another that we need to cover them together to make any sense out of them. Today’s lesson will introduce these nutrients, while the next lesson will cover getting them from food and supplements.

These three minerals are all friends, but they each play unique roles in the friendship. Chloride follows sodium wherever he goes, and never leaves his side. Sodium and potassium are always chasing one another, yet endlessly pass by each other in an elusive dance. Potassium is most often found inside a cell, sodium outside. When sodium chases after her by slipping into the cell, she slips out. When sodium takes the bus back home to the outside of the cell, potassium takes the same bus right back in.

This “bus,” known in technical jargon as the “sodium-potassium pump,” consumes 20-40% of our energy at rest. As we will see shortly, it serves to keep sodium (and the chloride that always follows it around) primarily outside cells and to keep potassium primarily inside cells. This separation of salt and potassium is critical to their functions.

Salt and Potassium Are Hydrating

Water has endless admiration for all three minerals. As a result, crowds of water molecules surround the three wherever they go. Since they attract water, they are hydrating. Since potassium hangs out inside cells, potassium primarily hydrates the insides of cells. Since salt hangs out outside cells, salt primarily hydrates the fluid outside your cells. This is called “extracellular fluid,” and it includes your blood.

When you consume food and drinks that contain water, the water has to travel from your intestines to your blood before it can enter your cells. As a result, potassium can’t hydrate your cells alone. Salt must first hydrate your blood and your other extracellular fluids. Then potassium can use that water to hydrate your cells.

This is why it is actually far more hydrating to drink a glass of water with a tiny pinch of salt (about 1/16th of a teaspoon) and some potassium-rich lemon juice (about ½ lemon) than to drink a glass of plain water alone. Similarly, it is more hydrating to drink a small amount of water while eating fresh foods that naturally contain salt and potassium, or that naturally contain potassium and have a little added salt, than it is to drink plain water on an empty stomach. In fact, raw foods tend to contain plenty of water themselves, so as long as you choose potassium-rich raw foods and add a tiny bit of salt, the foods themselves are likely to be very hydrating.

Salt and Potassium Are Electrolytes

The strong attraction between these minerals and water makes them fully dissolve in the water. Minerals that dissolve in water are called electrolytes, and these three are the most important ones. Other major electrolytes include calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and bicarbonate. Bicarbonate is the only major electrolyte that isn’t a mineral. We consume it in food, it is combined with sodium in baking soda, and we produce it naturally in our metabolism.

Because electrolytes are so fully dissolved in water, loss of water during sweating, vomiting, diarrhea, or excessive urination can cause us to lose them. You may see drinks or packets meant to be mixed with water that are designed to restore electrolytes in those scenarios.

Salt, Potassium, Blood Pressure, and Swelling

If you eat too much salt and not enough potassium, water will make it to your blood and your other extracellular fluids, but your cells could become dehydrated because there isn’t enough potassium to draw the water in.

Potassium is also needed to get rid of excess salt by driving it into your pee. Without it, salt accumulates in your blood, causing the water content of your blood to increase.

As the water content of your blood expands, it exerts more pressure on the walls of your blood vessels, causing high blood pressure.

Further, extracellular fluid in your face, hands, legs, or virtually any part of your body could accumulate and lead to swelling.

High blood pressure itself will force salt into your urine, and that will help bring blood pressure back to normal, and should help relieve any swelling that might be present. Although this allows your system to eventually return to normal, it requires a period of sustained high blood pressure, which raises the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and stroke. Consuming adequate potassium would have helped remove the salt from your system without the rise in blood pressure and without the increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

To keep blood pressure stable, and to keep the swelling away, salt and potassium need to be kept in balance.

Providing the Energy for Transport

Earlier we said that we invest 20-40% of our energy at rest in keeping salt outside of cells and potassium inside cells. This requires energy because the laws of physics state that everything in the universe tends to randomly spread out and mix together. Reversing this law by keeping everything in one place requires energy, just like jumping in the air requires energy because it fights against the law of gravity.

This creates a situation where there is so much sodium on the outside that it just wants to bust right in with all its might, and so much potassium on the inside that it wants to bust right out with all its might. They want to do this to comply with the laws of physics that everything spreads apart and mixes together, much like anything high up wants to drop down to the earth to fulfill the law of gravity.

That hunger to cross to the other side is a form of energy, and it can be used to fuel the transport of many other things from outside the cell to inside, or vice versa.

For the most part, it is sodium that is used for transport, but occasionally potassium, chloride, or both, can be found assisting sodium or even being used on their own to help transport something.

Digestion and Nutrient Absorption

The transport function of sodium gives it a central role in the digestion and absorption of nutrients.

Once we so much as see or smell the food we are about to eat, we start making saliva. Sodium helps transport saliva from our salivary glands into our mouth.

We chew the food, swallow it, and then it hits our stomach. Our stomach makes hydrochloric acid to start breaking down protein in the food, and to start separating important vitamins from those proteins so they can be absorbed later on in the intestines. Hydrochloric acid contains chloride, and sodium is used to transport it into the stomach. Thus, both components of salt -- sodium and chloride -- are key to digestion in the stomach.

After the stomach comes our small intestine. This is where we absorb most of our nutrients.

Sodium is used to transport digestive juices and bile acids into the small intestine. The digestive juices contain the enzymes that will break down our food. The bile acids will be used to absorb fats, cholesterol, and the fat-soluble vitamins, which are vitamins A, D, E, and K.

Sodium is also used directly to absorb glucose, the main carbohydrate, and most amino acids, which are the breakdown products of the protein found most abundantly in meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, and beans.

Finally, sodium is also used directly to absorb the following vitamins and minerals:

Vitamin C
Pantothenic acid (vitamin B5)
Biotin (vitamin B7)
Sulfate
Some forms of selenium
Phosphorus
Magnesium
Iodide
Nutrient Retention and Transport Within the Body

Once the nutrients are absorbed, sodium is used in the kidney to prevent them from being peed out, and is very often used to transport these nutrients into our cells so they can be used.

Sodium is used to transport many other substances, such as hormones, drugs, toxins, and many substances essential for life that we make and transport throughout the body every day.

For example, sodium is used to transport creatine, which athletes use for strength and big muscles, but which has also been shown to help with depression in women, and is known to provide the fuel needed to produce stomach acid, maintain healthy skin, heal wounds, process light inside our eyes, and power sperm to swim up the vaginal canal when searching for their egg.

Sodium and chloride are also both used to control the level of acidity (that is, the pH) in the body. They are needed to remove acids into the urine, to retain bicarbonate in the body, which is alkaline, and to control the pH of different tissues or even different compartments within cells to optimize them for specific functions.

Salt and Potassium in the Nervous System

Neurons, the main cells our brain is made of, and the cells that help us perceive with our senses and control our movements, communicate largely using salt and potassium.

Just as in other cells, salt is pumped to the outside of neurons and potassium to the inside. That hunger that drives them to reach the opposite side, just as it’s used for transport elsewhere, is used in neurons as a signal to flip them on or off. Neurotransmitters activate them usually by flipping open sodium channels, allowing sodium to rush through to the inside of the cell. Neurotransmitters inhibit neurons usually by flipping open chloride channels, allowing chloride to rush through to the inside.

Once a neuron is activated, it sends a signal to another neuron or to a muscle cell by opening and closing a series of sodium and potassium channels that run along its length, allowing sodium to rush in and potassium to rush out. Their movement acts as the signal that travels down to the end of the cell and causes it to take some action, usually releasing a neurotransmitter onto the nearby neuron or muscle cell.

The transport function of these minerals is just as important in the nervous system as it is elsewhere. Sodium is used to clear most of the major neurotransmitters back into the neurons they came from, or into nearby assistant cells, to prevent those neurotransmitters from having an effect for longer than intended. In some cases, potassium and chloride cooperate with sodium to remove the neurotransmitters.

A deficiency of salt or potassium in the brain could disrupt the ability of a neuron to send and receive signals, and it could also make neurons hypersensitive to neurotransmitters that aren’t being cleared effectively.

For example, some people with glutamate sensitivity have negative reactions to MSG or to the natural glutamate in protein-containing foods that have been fermented, slowly cooked, or pressure cooked. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that is cleared using sodium and potassium. Perhaps a deficiency of salt or potassium could play a role in this sensitivity by making it more difficult to clear the glutamate.

Potassium Activates Enzymes

There are hundreds of enzymes that depend on a certain amount of salt and potassium being present in their environment to have optimal activity. A much smaller number are activated by directly binding to one of these minerals.

In the case of sodium, only one enzyme has been established as sodium-dependent in humans. It is involved in breaking down collagen. Perhaps it helps keep our skin looking fresh by helping us replace old collagen with new collagen.

The number is larger for potassium. Potassium directly activates a number of enzymes that have the following functions:

Enabling decision-making about whether glucose should be broken down for energy, used to stoke the metabolic flame in which all fuel is burned, or conserved while protein is made into extra glucose.
Burning glucose for energy.
Burning ketones for energy.
DNA repair.
Incorporation of selenium into proteins so it can act as an antioxidant and can activate thyroid hormone, which raises the metabolic rate (see the lesson on iodine for a more complete view of thyroid hormone).
Synthesizing niacin (vitamin B3) from protein, and activating the niacin found in plant foods (niacin from animal foods does not require this process).
Preventing the production of unnecessary proteins, which would waste energy or activate inappropriate metabolic pathways.
Coordinating gene expression during the fasting state to break down unneeded proteins and damaged tissue.
From this wide array of roles, we can imagine that insufficient potassium could make energy metabolism go haywire and could hurt our ability to protect our tissues from damage and repair damage as we age.

Osteoporosis and Kidney Stones

A small number of studies have suggested that extra sodium causes our bones to release calcium, while potassium has the opposite effect. This could contribute to osteopenia and osteoporosis, conditions of low bone mineral density. These studies have also suggested that this calcium winds up in the urine, and on its way there it passes through the kidney, where it could contribute to kidney stones.

While the evidence isn’t very strong, to the extent it may be true, it suggests that sodium and potassium need to be balanced to support bone health and kidney health the same way they need to be balanced to support stable blood pressure and minimize swelling.

In the next lesson, we will cover how to meet the requirements for salt and potassium while also keeping them balanced in just this way. We will also cover drugs, diseases, and lifestyle choices that could cause dangerous disturbances in the blood levels of these minerals.

Wrapping Up

But first, let’s wrap up part 1!

Salt and potassium are hydrating. Rather than drinking plain water between meals, put a tiny pinch of salt and a little bit of lemon juice in your water, or have small amounts of water with food.
Without adequate potassium, salt could leave your cells dehydrated, raise your blood pressure, and increase swelling.

Salt is extremely important to the digestive process, from releasing saliva, stomach acid, and bile acids, to directly absorbing glucose, amino acids, and many vitamins and minerals.

Salt is involved in retaining nutrients, transporting them into cells and between tissues, and in transporting many other essential substances, such as creatine.

Salt is important to controlling the proper level of acidity in the body as a whole and in individual tissues and compartments within cells.

Salt and potassium allow neurons to respond to neurotransmitters or other signals, and to transmit signals to other neurons or to muscle cells.

Salt and potassium clear neurotransmitters, preventing them from having more of an effect than intended. Lack of these minerals in the brain could contribute to glutamate sensitivity.

Potassium activates a number of enzymes involved in energy metabolism, antioxidant defense, and repair.

Although the evidence is weaker than it is for blood pressure, balancing salt with potassium may be important to bone health and kidney health as well.

Important for anyone who manipulates for contests and just generally! read.

Max

POTASSIUM

Potassium in Foods: General Principles

As we go through the five tiers below, we should keep in mind several important principles:

Fruits tend to contain 100-500 mg potassium per 100 g food, and veggies generally provide 200-1000 mg potassium per 100 g food. This puts most of them in intermediate positions in the five tiers. However, when looked at per calorie, these foods really shine. For example, 300 Calories of spinach provides over 7 grams of potassium. If you have a lot of room in your tummy for high volumes of food but little room for calories, fruits and vegetables are the best sources of potassium.

If you need to focus on lower-volume, higher-calorie foods, the best way to get enough potassium is to eat a low-fat diet that is moderate in grains and free of refined grains. Fat is high in calories and extremely low in potassium. Refined grains tend to have about one-quarter the potassium as their whole grain counterparts, but legumes and potatoes have about four times as much potassium as whole grains. Per calorie, skim milk has twice as much potassium as whole milk, and egg whites have four times as much potassium as egg yolks. Egg yolks are very rich in other nutrients, and shouldn’t be restricted just to get more potassium from egg whites, but this comparison helps illustrate the general principle that eating less fat will help you get more potassium, which may be necessary if you don’t eat many fruits and veggies.
Fresh meats are good sources of potassium, but they lose a lot of it when the juices are lost in cooking. Unless otherwise specified, the foods listed in the five tiers are measured raw. If you are relying on meat for potassium, it is important to consume the meat juices as part of a sauce or stew.

Potassium in Foods: The Five Tiers

Now it’s time for the five tiers!

Tier 1

Tier 1 contains at least 1175 mg potassium per 100 grams of (g) food. Reaching the minimum daily target requires two servings for women and three for men. Getting into the optimal range requires four servings for both women and men.

Tier 1 contains some yummy treats: cocoa powder and molasses.

Tier 1 contains a single animal product: gjetost cheese.

Tier 1 contains the following beans, measured raw: small white, black turtle, kidney, black, pink, lima, pinto, great northern, cranberry, French, adzuki, mung, hyacinth, mothbean, and navy. It also contains these raw legumes and legume products: pigeon peas, catjang cowpeas, and peanut flour.

It contains dried lotus seeds, hulled hemp seeds, raw breadnut tree seeds, and roasted cottonseeds.

It also contains rice bran, wheat bran, and raw lambsquarter.

Tier 2

Tier 2 contains at least 680 mg potassium per 100 g food. Reaching the minimum daily target requires four servings for women and five for men. Getting into the optimal range requires seven servings for both women and men, which is about 1.5 pounds of food.

Like tier 1, tier 2 contains a single animal product: Canadian bacon.

Tier 2 contains some yummy treats: sorghum syrup, baker’s chocolate, and 70% or higher dark chocolate.

It contains a number of beans, measured raw: yardlong, fava, yellow, mungo, winged, young pinto, and garbanzo. It contains several other legumes, measured raw: common cowpeas, lupins, green split peas. It also contains several legume products: chickpea flour, carob flour, and natto. Some peanuts and peanut products also make it into this tier (Spanish peanuts whether raw or oil-roasted, raw Valencia peanuts, chunky or creamy peanut butter).

Tier 2 contains several raw nuts (pistachio, almonds, and hazelnuts); several dried nuts (beechnuts, ginkgo, chestnuts, and acorns); several dry-roasted nuts (pistachios, hazelnuts, and almonds), and two nut products (almond butter and acorn flour).

Tier 2 contains raw flaxseeds, breadfruit seeds whether they are raw or roasted, roasted pumpkin and squash seeds, and roasted sunflower seed kernels.

Tier 2 also contains steamed lambsquarters, and several raw veggies: arrowhead, Japanese-style pickled cabbage, yams, and beet greens.

It contains several dried fruits (prunes, seedless raisins, dried apricots, and medjool dates), potato flour, and three grain products (wheat germ, dried yellow corn, and dark rye flour).

Tier 3

Tier 3 contains at least 375 mg potassium per 100 g food. Women hit their minimum target with 1.3 pounds of these foods, men hit it with 2 pounds, and both men and women can enter the optimal range with just under 3 pounds.

Tier 3 contains a yummy treat: 45-70% dark chocolate.

Tier 3 contains a number of legumes and legume products: lentils, some peanuts (Virginia oil-roasted, Valencia oil-roasted), smooth peanut butter, soy protein, tempeh, soybeans, young pigeonpeas, sprouted soybeans, young lima beans, and sprouted peas.

Tier 3 contains most chestnuts (roasted, whether European, Chinese, or Japanese; raw Chinese; raw and peeled European). It contains many cooked nuts: oil-roasted or blanched almonds, blanched hazelnuts, dry- or oil-roasted cashews and pecans, and dry-roasted walnuts. It contains a number of dried nuts: Brazil nuts, pine nuts, walnuts, pili nuts, hickory nuts, and butternuts. It also contains a handful of raw nuts: cashews, acorns, and English walnuts. Finally, it contains two nut products: cashew butter and tahini.

Tier 3 contains some cooked seeds (toasted sesame seeds or seed kernels, and toasted or oil-roasted sunflower seeds), a few dried seeds (watermelon or sunflower seed kernels, chia seeds), and three seed products: sesame butter, sunflower seed butter, and sesame flour.

It contains many raw veggies: wild rose hips, pitted chokecherries, butterbur, taro leaves, epazote, amaranth leaves, bitter gourd leafy tips, garden cress, taro, yautia, Chinese water chestnuts, wasabi, chrysanthemum leaves and garlands, jute, spinach, lotus root, parsley, bamboo shoots, cilantro, sweet potato leaves, fireweed leaves, purslane, borage, drumstick pods, baby zucchini, red or white potatoes with the skin, cowpea leafy tips, arrowroot, mustard spinach, pumpkin leaves, Jerusalem artichokes, chicory greens, Hawaii mountain yam, ginger root, fennel bulb, garlic, dandelion greens, dock, Brussels sprouts, mustard greens, Swiss chard, and parsnips.

Tier 3 contains several mushrooms: chanterelle, brown, Italian, crimini, oyster, and morel.

Tier 3 contains many meat products: beef (spleen, and many cuts of steak, roast, ribs, and stew meat, though many of these cuts are in tier 4); many cuts of fresh pork or pork ham, though many other cuts are in tier 4 and some cuts of ham are in tier 5; veal thymus; lamb pancreas and tenderloin; bison top round; ground chicken; goat, rabbit, goose, and some luncheon meats (roast beef, ham, peppered loaf, turkey hot dogs, bacon and beef sticks, dry or hard pork salami).

The majority of fish make it into tier 3: salmon, spot, grouper, rainbow or brook trout, most mackerel (Spanish, king, Pacific and jack), fresh yellowfin or shipjack tuna, lingcod, halibut, tilefish, Pacific herring or kippered Atlantic herring, swordfish, snapper, mahimahi, cod, burbot, sheepshead, monkfish, ocean pout, cusk, walleye pike, Pacific rockfish, American shad, European anchovy, Florida pompano, white sucker, ling, and butterfish. Snails are also in tier 3.

Many grains and grain products are in tier 3: oat bran, quinoa, rye, whole-grain triticale, buckwheat, hulled barley, whole wheat, spelt, oats, teff, wild rice, and whole-grain corn flour.

One dairy product makes it into tier 3: fat-free American cheese.

Tier 3 contains several raw fruits (tamarinds, California avocados, breadfruit, plantains, mamey sapote, durian, and guavas) and two dried fruits (delget noor dates and dried peaches).

Finally, tier 3 contains unsweetened dried coconut, including coconut that has been toasted or creamed after drying.

Tier 4

Tier 4 contains at least 207 mg potassium per 100 g food. This allows women to hit their minimum target in 2.5 pounds, men in 3.7 pounds, and both men and women to hit the bottom of the optimal range with five pounds of food. Since we tend to eat 3-5 pounds of food per day, the foods in this tier represent the limit of what could bring most of us into the optimal range if we ate from this tier alone. However, there are some low-calorie, high-potassium foods in tier 5 that could bring some people into the optimal range if they’re willing to eat enough of them.

Tier 4 has two yummy treats: maple sugar and maple syrup.

Tier 4 contains an enormous amount of raw veggies: globe or French artichokes, arugula, Canadian Cultivated EMI-TSUNOMATA seaweed, laver (nori), winter butternut, kohlrabi, kale, acorn squash, eppaw, green or red hot chili peppers, pumpkin, drumstick leaves, shallots, radishes (regular, Hawaiian pickled, white icicle, and oriental), fava beans in the pod, taro shoots, celtuce, watercress, beets, broccoli, carrots, hubbard squash, endive, convolvulus, burdock, serrano peppers, rutabagas, radicchio, cauliflower, celeriac, okra, bitter gourd pods, turnip greens, chicory roots, scallions, grape leaves, cassava, sweet white or yellow corn, tomatillos, zucchini with the skin, celery, yellow and red tomatoes, nopales, banana pepper, bok choy, jalapeno peppers, cabbage (green, red, mustard, napa, and savoy), green peas, pokeberry shoots, butterhead lettuce (Boston and bibb), baby carrots, eggplant, agar seaweed, oriental radishes, crookneck and straightneck squash, collard greens, sweet yellow or red peppers, yellow snap beans, and cattail narrow leaf shoots. It also contains blanched stinging nettles.

Many raw fruits make it into tier 4: wild plums, bananas, Florida avocados, purple Passion fruit, currants (European black, red, and white), kiwifruit, persimmons, abiyuch, strawberry guavas, rhubarb, cherimoya, elderberries, soursop, cantaloupe, longans, loquats, carissa, apricots, sugar-apples, nance, pomegranates, figs, honeydew, cherries, prickly pears, pummelo, orange peel, and roselle. Three fresh fruit juices make it into tier 4 as well: pomegranate, and yellow or purple passionfruit.

Tier 4 contains several mushrooms: portabella, enoki, white, and shiitake.

It contains raw lotus seeds and dried sesame seed kernels. Macadmia nuts, whether raw or dry-roasted, and Japanese chestnuts also make it in.

It also contains several legumes and legume products: raw Valencia peanuts, raw firm tofu, okara, sprouted lentils, sprouted navy greens, young hyacinth beans, young broadbeans, yardlong beans, winged beans, and young cowpeas in the pod.

Many grain products make it into tier 4: medium or light rye flour, partially debranned oat flour, sorghum, hard red winter wheat, triticale, whole-grain sorghum flour, white or yellow corn or cornmeal, barley flour and pearled barley flour, brown rice flour, medium-grain brown rice, barley malt flour, and millet flour.

Tier 4 contains a number of unsweetened coconut products: raw coconut, coconut milk, coconut cream, and coconut water or juice.

Tier 4 is also home to the largest number of animal products. It includes ground beef, some beef offal (thymus, lungs, and kidneys) and many many cuts of beef steak, roast, ribs, and stew, though many cuts are also in tier 3. It includes most cuts of veal and lamb offal and muscle, though veal thymus and lamb pancreas and tenderloin are in tier 3 and some muscle cuts are in tier 5. It includes most cuts of bison, though top round is in tier 3. Tier 4 contains many cuts of fresh pork or pork ham, though many other cuts are in tier 3 and some cuts of ham are in tier 5. Tier 4 contains many poultry products (ground turkey, the breast of Canadian goose, chicken, and ruffed grouse; many cuts of emu and ostrich, domesticated goose, pheasant leg, cornish game hens, wild duck, quail, pigeon, duck liver, goose liver, chicken giblets, and guinea hen). It contains horse, antelope, turtle, beaver, deer, elk, moose, squirrel, water buffalo, caribou, muskrat, and domesticated rabbit. It also contains many deli products (pork pickle and pimiento loaf, sliced turkey, beef hot dog, pork and beef salami, beef balogna, turkey bacon, turkey pastrami, Italian pork salami, Lebanon bologna, minced ham, chorizo, pepperoni, turkey sausage, and pork liver cheese.

Tier 4 has many fish: channel catfish, sablefish, striped mullet, freshwater bass, Atlantic pollock, cisco, sunfish, croaker, sea trout, carp, Alaskan pollock, Atlantic herring, whitefish, Atlantic mackerel, tilapia, Atlantic wolffish, milkfish, rainbow smelt, scup, haddock, sturgeon, drum, eel, perch, Greenland halibut, northern pike, striped and sea bass, bluefin tuna, whiting, European raw turbot, Pacific cod, and fish roe.

It also has many shellfish and other crustaceans: dungeness crab, cuttlefish, octopus, whelk, blue crab, blue mussels, crayfish, catfish, shrimp, crayfish, abalone, and squid.

Tier 4 contains whole duck and goose eggs, whole milk ricotta, and several low-fat dairy products: nonfat yogurt, low-fat plain yogurt, low-fat American cheese, low-fat cream cheese, and light, reduced-fat, or low-fat sour cream.

Tier 5

Tier 5 contains at least 101 mg potassium per 100 g food. This allows women to hit their minimum target with 5 pounds of these foods. Men would need to consume a whopping 7.4 pounds of these foods to meet their minimum target, and getting into the optimal range would be extremely difficult, requiring over 10 pounds of food. While this may sound impossible, many of the veggies are low enough in calories that you could fit in these high poundage numbers if you are willing to eat very large volumes of food.

Tier 5 has a yummy treat: brown sugar.

Tier 5 contains many raw fruits: wild raspberries, prickly pears, grapes, nectarines, naranjilla pulp, gooseberries, quinces, oranges with or without the peel, crabapples, mulberries, sapodilla, yellow peaches, kumquats, casaba melons, papayas, clementines, sour red cherries, feijoa, litchis, mangoes, tangerines, blackberries, tart cherry juice, Japanese persimmons, lemons and limes, lemon peel, plums, strawberries, raspberries, grapefruit, acerola, loganberries, starfruit, most pears (green or red anjou, bosc, Asian, bartlett), pineapple, sour red cherries, horned melon, apples (granny smith, fuji, gala, red delicious), watermelon, and pitanga. It also contains several fresh juices: orange, tangerine, grapefruit, and lime. Several frozen fruits (raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, and rhubarb) make it into tier 5 as well.

Tier 5 contains a number of raw veggies: prairie turnips, turnips, turnip greens, green tomatoes, asparagus, Hungarian peppers, peas in the pod, broccoli raab, green leaf and red leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, sesbania flower, poi, scallop summer squash, leeks, sweet green peppers, pumpkin flowers, cabbage, mustard greens, young green onion tops, kimchi, calabash, jicama, cucumber with or without the peel, onions, dishcloth gourd, New Zealand spinach, chayote, pickles, and spaghetti squash.

Tier 5 contains a single mushroom: maitake.

It contains sprouted kidney and mung beans, and several legume products: soybean curd cheese, most tofu (soft, regular, hard, firm and extra firm), many soy-based meat substitutes, hummus, and soymilk.

Tier 5 also contains raw millet, sprouted wheat, white flour, and refined sorghum flour.

Tier 5 contains whole chicken eggs as well as the white or yolk alone, whole turkey and quail eggs, and the largest number of dairy products of any tier: goat milk, fat-free ice cream, flavored low-fat yogurts, plain whole milk yogurt, cheese (edam, part skim mozzarella, camembert, parmesan, semisoft goat, brie, neufchatel, provolone, cottage, brick, port de salut, muenster, cream, queso fresco, limburger, colby, queso blanco, queso cotija, part-skim ricotta, gouda, queso seco, low-fat swiss, and fat-free swiss), Indian buffalo milk, sheep milk, any cow milk, whey, light cream, buttermilk, half and half, and some sour cream (reduced-fat, fat-free, and cultured).

It contains several fish (Atlantic ocean perch, roughy orange, flounder, sole, pollock, shark, and surimi), black and red caviar, and a number of shellfish and other crustaceans (scallops, Alaska king crab, northern lobster, spiny lobster, queen crab, eastern wild or farmed oysters, and shrimp.

Finally, tier 5 also contains many meats and meat products. These include certain cuts of veal (ground veal, shoulder blade, shank) and lamb (rib, and shoulder arm and blade,) and both veal and lamb fat. It includes bacon, many cuts of ham, and certain cuts of pork offal (pancreas, belly, jowl, and stomach). Most chicken and turkey cuts belong to tier 5, as do pigeons and guinea hens. Many processed meats also belong to tier 5: chicken hot dogs, braunschweiger liver sausage, liver pate, liverwurst, knackwurst and knockwurst, Italian sausage, mortadella, pork scrapple, and turkey bacon.

Honorable Mention: Spices

Many spices deserve “honorable mention” status. If we consider 2 grams of spices to be a serving, none of the spices make the cut. However, if you consume a spice-heavy diet, the spices may make a meaningful contribution to your potassium intake. For example, if you mixed-and-matched 20 total grams of paprika, turmeric, red or cayenne pepper, or chili powder, your spices would be the equivalent of single serving from tier 3.

Mixing and matching 20 grams of the following spices would give you the equivalent of a single tier 4 food: cumin, saffron, fennel, anise, celery, caraway seed, black pepper, ground ginger, coriander seed, garlic powder, dill seed, curry powder, cardamom, sage, savory, and allspice.

Mixing and matching 20 grams of the following spices would give you the equivalent of a single tier 5 food: ground cloves, onion powder, fenugreek seed, dill weed, mustard seed, poppy seed, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh peppermint, and bay leaf.

Foods That Didn’t Make the Cut

Many foods don’t make the cut. These foods may contain some potassium, but they don’t contain enough to meet the minimum requirement for women in five pounds of food. If you hit your potassium requirement with higher-tier foods, consuming these foods will not hurt your potassium status. However, if you are relying mostly on foods in tiers 4 and 5 to meet your requirement, foods that don’t make the cut are going to displace foods from tier 4 and 5 that you are depending on, and consuming them will hurt your ability to get enough.

Most unrefined sweeteners that aren’t mentioned above probably fit somewhere in the five tiers, just like brown sugar (tier 5), maple syrup (tier 4), and molasses (tier 1), but haven’t been measured. Refined sweeteners, however, are extremely low in potassium. For example, turbinado or “raw” sugar only has 29 mg per 100 g, white sugar has only 2 mg per 100 g, and high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t have any.

With the exception of veal and lamb fat, most fats and oils contain very little if any potassium. Beef tripe also fails to make the cut. Animal foods from collagen-rich tissues like ears, feet, and skin tend to not make the cut, as do foods made from blood, such as blood sausage. Clams also fail to make the cut.

Dairy products that are mostly fat (butter, ghee, cream) and many cheeses (cheshire, caraway parmesan, roquefort, queso anejo, queso asadero, romano, gruyere, monterey, mozarella, Swiss, cheddar, tilsit, fontina, feta, queso chihuahua, and hard goat) don’t make the cut.

While two refined grains made it into tier 5 (white flour and refined sorghum), most do not, and these include bread flour, white rice, tapioca pearls, corn bran, and corn starch.

Some raw fruit (wild blackberries, golden delicioius apples with the skin, cranberries, java-plum, blueberries, mamey, and oheloberries), two fresh fruit juices (cranberry and acerola), three seaweeds (kelp, irishmoss, and wakame), one raw veggie (waxgourd), one mushroom (pepeao), sprouted radishes, and sprouted alfalfa also fail to make the cut.

Spices that aren’t listed above under “honorable mentions” don’t make the cut.

Dietary Patterns

Several dietary patterns require special attention for potassium.

Junk Food

Sugary drinks and baked goods made from white flour and sugar displace potassium-rich foods in the diet. Although white flour makes it into tier 5, it has far more calories than many of the vegetables in tier 5, so it isn’t possible for it to provide a good source of potassium. 2000 Calories of white flour, in fact, provides less than 600 mg of potassium. White sugar and high-fructose corn syrup dilute this even further: 2000 Calories of white sugar contains only 10 mg of potassium, and 2000 Calories of high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t contain any.

Baked goods from these ingredients can fit into a diet in small amounts without creating a potassium deficiency if you make sure to fulfill your potassium requirement from foods in the higher tiers, but if they become an overwhelming feature of your diet they will make it hard to get enough potassium.

Baked goods made from whole grains and completely unrefined sweeteners, by contrast, can support potassium intakes when eaten as part of a well-balanced diet. Many whole grains are in tier 3, molasses is in tier 1, maple sugar is in tier 4, and other completely unrefined sweeteners that haven’t been measured are most likely in similar positions within the tiers.

Grain-Based Diets

Although most whole grains are decent sources of potassium, they are high enough in calories that you cannot rely on them to supply your potassium needs alone. For example, 2000 Calories of whole wheat provides just under 2000 mg, which is not enough. 2000 Calories of white flour fairs even worse at 600 mg, and white rice fairs even worse at only 540 mg. If you eat liberally from high-potassium, low-calorie fruits and vegetables, you can afford to eat some refined grains, and whole grains can make a meaningful contribution to your potassium intake. Still, diversifying starches to include more than grains, such as legumes and potatoes, will dramatically improve potassium intakes.

Keto and Low-Carb High-Fat


Fat has very little potassium, so high-fat diets such as ketogenic diets or low-carb, high-fat diets run the risk of containing too little potassium if the diet isn’t rich enough in low-carbohydrate veggies. These diets generally aim at restricting non-fiber carbs, which are often called “net carbs.” Some of the best potassium-to-net-carb ratios are found in watercress, spinach, purslane, mustard greens, bamboo shoots, arugula, red leaf lettuce, celery, white mushrooms, green leaf lettuce, zucchini, Chinese cabbage, asparagus, common cabbage, iceberg lettuce, and tomatoes.

Carnivore

With the exception of gjetost cheese (tier 1) and Canadian bacon (tier 2), most animal products fall into tiers three, four, and five. Since animal products are more calorically dense than fruits and veggies, it’s harder to get enough potassium from the animal products in these tiers than from the fruits and veggies in these tiers. Consuming lean cuts of meat is one of the best ways to maintain good potassium intakes. For example, 2000 Calories of 80% lean ground beef only provides 2126 mg potassium, which doesn’t even meet the minimum requirement for women. The same caloric load from 90% lean ground beef, by contrast, provides 3647 mg, which meets the minimum requirement for both men and women. 95% lean ground beef provides 5051 mg, which reaches into the optimal range.

When meat is cooked, much of the potassium is lost in the juices. Since meat is the main or only source of potassium on a carnivore diet, it is imperative to consume the juices in sauces or stews.

Potassium Supplements

Are Potassium Supplements Safe?

Potassium does not have a clearly established limit of toxicity, but when blood levels of potassium rise too high, your heart rate may increase, your heart may skip beats or flutter, and you may experience confusion, tingling, numbness, weakness, or the feeling of something crawling on your skin. In severe cases, high blood levels of potassium can be fatal.

For most healthy people, potassium supplements will not cause any of these problems. In fact, in healthy people, studies have used over 15 grams of supplemental potassium per day without any of these side effects.

However, people with diabetes, insulin resistance, impaired kidney function, or who are using ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, potassium-sparing diuretics, alpha- or beta-blockers, digitalis, heparin, the antimicrobial drugs Bactrim and pentamidine or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen), have a more difficult time clearing potassium from their blood and should not take potassium supplements unless explicitly authorized by their doctor.

Potassium chloride supplements have caused gastrointestinal distress when provided in a wax matrix or microencapsulated gelatin capsule, but not as a powder mixed with water.

Since potassium plays a central role in insulin release, and since insulin lowers blood sugar, it is possible that a high dose of potassium on an empty stomach could push your blood sugar too low. It is therefore best to take potassium with food, preferably with a meal that contains at least five grams of non-fiber carbohydrate.

If you don’t fall into any of the categories that make potassium supplements unsafe that are listed above, it is safe to use potassium supplements on the background of a high-quality diet to help bridge the gap between your intake from food and your daily target. Just keep the total from food and supplements under 15 grams per day, and follow these simple rules:

Spread the supplements out evenly across the day.

Always take them with food. Ideally, mix them into your food. When that is impractical, take them at the end of your meal.

Avoid wax-matrix or microencapsulated potassium chloride.

Start with a low dose, such as 400 mg per meal, and increase slowly over the course of a week to reach your target. If you experience a faster heart rate, your heart skipping a beat or fluttering, confusion, tingling, numbness, weakness, or the feeling of something crawling on your skin, stop the supplement and tell your doctor.

The Many Forms of Potassium Supplements

Potassium supplements generally come as potassium chloride, bicarbonate, citrate, iodide, gluconate, glycinate, or aspartate. The potassium in these supplements will become completely free from whatever it is paired to, so it makes little difference in terms of how much potassium you absorb. Potassium is highly absorbable from food and from any of these supplements.

Potassium iodide should primarily be seen as an iodine supplement, and is covered in the lesson on iodine.

The gluconate in potassium gluconate should primarily be seen as a means of delivering potassium. It works fine, but there’s nothing special about it.

The other forms of potassium deserve some extra discussion.

Potassium Glycinate and Aspartate

Potassium glycinate provides the amino acid glycine, which helps with sleep when taken 3 g before bed and helps with blood sugar when taken 3-5 g per meal. If you took 1562 mg potassium as potassium glycinate, you would get 3 g glycine.

Potassium aspartate provides the amino acid aspartate, which may help boost exercise performance and endurance when taken at about 6.5 g per day. If you took 1909 mg potassium as potassium aspartate, you would get 6.5 g aspartate.

If your needs for glycine or aspartate coincidentally line up with how much potassium you’d have to take to get them from these supplements, it may make sense to use these forms. However, it is easier to control the dose if you supplement the amino acids and the potassium separately.

Potassium Chloride

Potassium chloride has a salty taste, and can be useful to use as a salt substitute when trying to reduce sodium intake. However, it is not ideal as a potassium supplement. Chloride accounts for about half of the blood pressure-raising effect of salt, so potassium chloride will be less effective at lower blood pressure than other forms.

Potassium chloride is also unlikely to be as beneficial for bone health. One of the factors in bone health is acidity. Our body regulates acidity by converting the excess to water, and peeing out what is left over. We use bicarbonate -- the same bicarbonate in baking soda -- to convert acidity to water, and when we don’t have enough bicarbonate, we take it out of our bones. This causes us to lose minerals like calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium from our bones, and weakens our bones.

In foods, potassium tends to pair with molecules such as citrate and malate, while sodium pairs with chloride. Potassium helps us pee out excess acidity into our urine. Citrate and malate both help us preserve our stores of bicarbonate, which neutralizes acidity by converting it to water. In foods, potassium, citrate, and malate all act as a team that fights excess acidity and helps us preserve our bone strength. Potassium chloride only has the acid-fighting, bone-boosting effects of the potassium and misses out on the acid-fighting, bone-boosting effects of citrate and malate.

So, feel free to use potassium chloride as a salt substitute, but it isn’t ideal as a potassium supplement.

Potassium Bicarbonate

Potassium bicarbonate is better than potassium chloride at balancing salt in the diet and supporting healthy blood pressure because it doesn’t have chloride.

In theory, bicarbonate should make a good acid-fighting, bone-boosting partner for potassium, since the citrate and malate in foods do their part primarily by helping us conserve bicarbonate. However, bicarbonate can neutralize our stomach acid by converting it to water, which can hurt our digestion.

You can avoid the negative effects of bicarbonate on digestive health by taking it on an empty stomach. However, it is best to take potassium with meals. Potassium bicarbonate puts you between a rock and a hard place, being bad with meals because of the bicarbonate and bad on an empty stomach because of the potassium.

Potassium Citrate

Potassium citrate is the best form to take. It lacks chloride, so will be great for balancing salt and contributing to healthy blood pressure. The citrate occurs naturally in food and is safe to take on a full stomach. It won’t hurt digestion, but will team up with potassium after digestion to neutralize acidity and strengthen bones.

Salt in Natural Foods

Now let’s move on to sodium! Our first topic is whether we can get enough sodium from natural, whole foods alone, without adding any salt.

All natural, whole foods contain some sodium, but few of them are high enough for us to get the AI from whole foods alone, and even fewer are high enough for us to get too much sodium.

The Five Tiers

Let’s briefly consider a five-tier system where, to get the AI of 1500 mg/d, tier 1 requires one serving, tier 2 requires 2-3 servings, tier 3 requires 3-5 servings, tier 4 requires 1-2 pounds, and tier 5 requires 2-5 pounds. As usual, for most foods 100 grams is a serving, but for spices, 2 grams is a serving.

To avoid the addition of sodium during processing and cooking, we will limit our discussion in this section to raw, unprepared foods.

For grains, fruit, milk, fats, oils, legumes, nuts, seeds, and spices, nothing makes the cut. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

No natural food makes it into tier 1.

Tier 2 contains only wakame, a type of seafood, and Alaska king crab.

Tier 3 contains several shellfish and crustaceans (clams, queen crab, northern lobster, scallops, cuttlefish, abalone) and a single finfish (Pacific cod).

Tier 4 is where veggies first appear. Kelp, a seaweed, as well as beet greens, Swiss chard, and cardoon make it into this tier. So do egg whites, a handful of offal meats (beef lung and kidney, veal and lamb kidney, and turkey neck), three fish (flatfish, Atlantic ocean perch, and haddock), and a small collection of shellfish and other crustaceans (dungeness and blue crab, blue mussel, common octopus, whelk, eastern farmed oysters, and spiny lobster).

Tier 5 contains whole eggs; most but not all cuts of beef, veal, lamb, game meat, and poultry; many but not most cuts of pork; and most of the other shellfish and crustaceans that have been measured (shrimp, Pacific oyster, European anchovy, farmed channel catfish, burbot, and snails); and fish roe. Crayfish and squid, on the other hand, don’t make the cut.

Roughly half the finfish that have been measured fall into tier 5, and the other half don’t make the cut.

Tier 5 has a decent collection of veggies: spinach, chrysanthemum, water convolvulus, waxgourd, celeriac, artichokes, celery, borage, beets, carrots, dandelion greens, irishmoss, and turnips. Any veggies not mentioned here or in tier 4 don’t make the cut.

Getting Enough Sodium From Whole Foods Is Hard

If you somehow managed to eat exclusively from tiers 2 and 3, which consist of shellfish, Pacific cod, and wakame, you could get way too much sodium in your diet. For example, 2000 Calories of Alaska king crab provides almost 20 grams of sodium. On the lower end is abalone, where 2000 Calories provides just under 6 grams of sodium, which is healthy for many people but may cause high blood pressure or headaches for some.

If you eat 1-2 pounds of foods in tier 4 you can hit the AI without adding any salt, and most people could get 3-6 grams of sodium from eating very liberally within this tier.

In tier 5, it starts getting hard. 2000 Calories of whole eggs hits just under 2000 mg, which is above the AI and below the CDRR, officially in the sweet spot. Many of the meats, however, are too dense in calories to easily hit the AI. For example, 2000 Calories of 95% lean ground beef provides less than 1000 mg of sodium. Only a small collection of veggies make it into this tier, and you’d need to eat 2-5 pounds of them just to meet the AI.

Half the measured fish, many cuts of pork, some other cuts of meat, most veggies, and ALL grains, fruit, milk, fats, oils, legumes, nuts, seeds, and spices fail to make the cut.

Most of us, therefore, would need to eat prepared foods with added salt, or to add salt to the meals we make from scratch in order to get enough.

Salt in Processed Foods

Salt (sodium chloride) plays a number of important roles in food processing:

It preserves foods, and in fermented foods it helps beneficial bacteria outcompete harmful bacteria that would spoil the food.
Adding it to meat during cooking draws water into the meat and creates a juicier texture.
Salt helps create a gel-like structure that holds together, which is what allows hot dogs and breakfast sausages to hold their shape without falling apart.
In bread, it slows the rate at which the bread rises by curbing the growth of the yeast, and limits how much the bread can expand; this allows the dough to become airy when it rises without collapsing. Salt also acts as a preservative in bread.
In addition to having its own flavor, salt enhances or modifies many other flavors.
Sodium also enters processed foods in other forms:

Most phosphate additives, discussed in the lesson on calcium and phosphorus in foods, are paired with sodium.

Most sulfite additives, discussed in the lesson on molybdenum, are paired with sodium.
Sodium lactate and diacetate are added along with sodium chloride to precooked processed meats as preservatives.

Sodium benzoate and propionate are used as preservatives.

Sodium bicarbonate, also known as baking soda, is used as leavening.

Sodium caseinate, a pairing between sodium and one of the main proteins from milk, is used to create a white color, mix fat and water together within salad dressings, and bind water in meat.

When Salt Hides From Taste Buds

One of the problems with the salt added to processed foods is that it can sometimes hide from our taste buds, allowing us to consume large amounts by bypassing our natural tastes.

In snack foods where the salt is added to make the food salty, such as potato chips, the salt is added to the surface, and it all hits our taste buds.

In bread products and processed meats, however, the salt penetrates the food and becomes stuck to proteins or stuck within gel-like networks. This allows it to hide from our taste buds. If food manufacturers want the food to be salty, they have to add a lot of extra salt.

Most Salt Intake Comes From Processed Foods

For people consuming a typical modern diet, about 10-15% of sodium is naturally present in the foods they eat, 5-6% is added during cooking, and 5-6% is added at the table. A whopping 70-80% comes from processed and prepared foods.

More specifically, the biggest contributors to sodium intake are bread and other processed grain products, cheese, processed meats, condiments and sauces, packaged snack foods (for example, crackers, popcorn, pretzels, and chips), and desserts (for example, cakes, cookies, pastries, and pie).

Don’t Avoid Salting Your Food

It makes no sense for almost anyone to focus on limiting the salt they add to their food at the table as a means of reducing sodium intake. Reducing or eliminating processed foods can reduce sodium intakes up to 80%, but banning the salt shaker from your table can only reduce your sodium intake by up to 6%.

And if you do eliminate processed and prepared foods from your diet, you most likely will only get enough sodium if you salt your food liberally.

Limit Processed Foods and Salt to Taste

The best way to approach salt requirements, in my view, is to limit processed foods -- including fermented food, cheese, any type of bread, snack foods, and any type of processed meat, even if made at home from scratch -- to 20% of the diet, and to freely add as much salt to your food as you desire. The 20% is a rough measure, so use weight or volume, whatever is easier.

If you crave salt doing this, feel free to increase fermented food, cheese, or high-quality salty snacks beyond the 20% until the salt cravings are satisfied, but try not to use bread or processed meats to go above 20%, since their salt is so easily hidden from our taste buds.

One of the potential problems with the idea of “salt to taste” is that many of us may have spent a long time suppressing our physiological drive for salt by deliberately eating a low-salt diet, or by pounding ourselves endlessly with processed foods that pack in far more sodium than we can taste.

In these cases, I recommend a “salt reset.” If you’ve eaten a diet rich in processed foods, try cutting them all out entirely for 3-4 weeks. If you’ve eaten a very low-sodium diet, try pushing the boundaries of what you enjoy by making your food a little too salty for 3-4 weeks. This should help your desire for salt become more aligned with your physiological needs. After the “reset,” make a habit of always salting your food, but only adding enough to make it taste good.

Dangerous Changes to Blood Levels

While dietary intake of these minerals is important, a variety of lifestyle choices, health issues, and medications can cause dangerous disturbances in their blood levels that generally would only occur at very extreme changes in dietary intake. Out of all of these, low blood sodium (discussed third) is the most common.

Hypokalemia: Low Blood Potassium

When potassium runs low in the blood, it is known medically as hypokalemia. This causes fatigue; muscle weakness, cramps, spasms, or twitches; and bloating, constipation, and abdominal pain. It can slow the heart rate, make it skip a beat or flutter, and in severe cases it is fatal.

The following are causes of hypokalemia:

Extreme restriction of potassium below 400 mg/d.
Loss of potassium in vomit, sweat, diarrhea, or excessive urination.
Overuse of laxatives.
Anorexia or bulimia.
Magnesium deficiency.
Excessive consumption of black licorice.
The use of certain diuretics.
Kidney disease.
Abnormally high levels of aldosterone, a hormone that controls the balance of sodium and potassium.
Refeeding after prolonged fasting, starvation, or undereating, which sucks potassium into cells. This is especially risky if the refeeding diet is low in potassium.
Hyperkalemia: High Blood Potassium

When potassium runs high in the blood, it is known as hyperkalemia. This causes the heart to beat fast, skip beats, or flutter, and may cause tingling, numbness, weakness, or the feeling of something crawling on the skin. In severe cases, high blood levels of potassium can be fatal.

The following are causes of hyperkalemia:

Taking 18 grams or more of potassium all at once.

The use of certain drugs, especially when taking potassium supplements: ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, heparin, alpha and beta-blockers, digitalis, NSAIDs (such as aspirin and ibuprofen), two antimicrobials (pentamidine and Bactrim), and potassium-sparing diuretics.

Abnormally low levels of aldosterone, a hormone that controls the balance of sodium and potassium.

Damage to red blood cells or other tissues that causes potassium to spill into the blood.
Kidney failure.

Hyponatremia: Low Blood Sodium

When sodium runs low in the blood, it is known medically as hyponatremia. When this happens suddenly, it causes headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps, fatigue, disorientation, and fainting. In severe cases, it causes seizures, coma, brain damage, and death. When it happens at low levels all the time, it makes it harder to walk correctly, and causes falls, attention deficits, bone loss, fractures, strokes, heart attacks, and an increased risk of dying from strokes, heart attacks, liver failure, and lung infections.

Hyponatremia occurs in just under 2% of the general population and just over 3% of those over 65. In hospitalized patients, 15-30% have mild cases, and 7% have severe cases.

The following are causes of hyponatremia:

Extreme restriction of sodium below 400 mg/d.
During competitive exercise, especially in heat, thirst can drive us to consume more water than our kidneys are able to remove as urine. The water accumulates in our blood and dilutes the sodium.
Loss of salt in vomit, sweat, or diarrhea.
Kidney disease.
Neurological disease.
Certain medications: diuretics, NSAIDs, opiate derivatives, phenothiazines (used for severe emotional disorders), SSRIs, and tricyclic antidepressants.
Hypernatremia: High Blood Sodium

When sodium runs high in the blood, it is known medically as hypernatremia. This is much rarer than hyponatremia. It can produce dizziness, fainting, low blood pressure, and can dry up your urine. Severe cases may cause altered mental status, lethargy, irritability, stupor, convulsions, coma, and brain hemorrhage.

Consuming a large excess of sodium at one time may result in nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps, but rarely would produce hypernatremia. A theoretical exception may be the consumption of large volumes of seawater, but this is more likely to result in diarrhea because the extra sodium would draw water into the gut rather than be absorbed.

Excessive administration of saline in an IV may result in hypernatremia, but it is usually caused by loss of water rather than too much sodium. Burns, respiratory infections, diarrhea, excessive urination, and neurological disorders impairing thirst are the main reasons for hypernatremia.

Disturbances of Chloride

Chloride tends to pair with sodium very closely, so its levels in the blood are rarely disturbed without similar disturbances of sodium. In theory, persistent vomiting could cause chloride to run low due to the loss of stomach acid, which is made up partly of chloride. In theory, this could cause muscle spasms, twitching, tremors, a slow heart rate, the heart skipping beats or fluttering, confusion, weakness, irritability, gastrointestinal distress, and weakness.

What to Do About It

If you experience any of the signs or symptoms of disturbances in the blood levels of these minerals, you should seek medical attention. Additionally, if the source of the problem is within your control, you should remove it. For example, if you experience signs of hyponatremia when drinking copious amounts of water, stop drinking the water.

Finally, low levels of the minerals can be avoided in some cases by replacing them when they are lost. For example, during persistent vomiting and diarrhea, or during excessive sweating or urination, take an electrolyte cocktail, or make a concerted effort to increase your intake of salt and potassium-rich foods.

Wrapping It Up

OK, let’s wrap it all up!

Signs you need more potassium include high blood pressure, water retention and swelling, bone loss, kidney stones, fatigue, muscle weakness and cramps, bloating, constipation, and abdominal pain.

There are three ways to get adequate potassium: 1) eat lots of fruits and vegetables, 2) eat lots of legumes and starchy tubers such as potatoes, while limiting fat and grains, and strictly avoiding refined grains and sugars; 3) eat lots of lean protein foods, while limiting fat and consuming all of the juices in sauces and stews.

Desserts made from whole grains and completely unrefined sweeteners can be decent sources of potassium, but treats made from refined grains and sugars are bad for potassium status.

Those eating keto or low-carb high-fat need to be mindful of eating large volumes of high-potassium, low-carb veggies, while carnivores need to be mindful of keeping fat low and consuming all the juices released from their meats during cooking.

Potassium supplements are safe for healthy people if the total intake from food and supplements is kept under 15 grams per day (with little if any need to go above 11 grams per day), spread evenly across meals, and always taken with food. Potassium citrate is the best form to take.

People with diabetes, insulin resistance, impaired kidney function, or who are using ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, potassium-sparing diuretics, alpha- or beta-blockers, digitalis, heparin, the antimicrobial drugs Bactrim and pentamidine or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen) should not take potassium supplements at all unless authorized by their doctor.

If potassium supplementation causes your heart rate to increase, skip beats or flutter, or if you experience confusion, tingling, numbness, weakness, or the feeling of something crawling on your skin, stop the supplement and tell your doctor.

Signs you may not be getting enough sodium include low blood pressure, including orthostatic hypotension (which causes you to feel dizzy when standing up), fatigue, weakness, dizziness, diarrhea, poor mental function, poor digestion, poor absorption of nutrients, and in extreme cases headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps, disorientation, and fainting.

Signs you may be getting too much sodium include headaches, high blood pressure, water retention, and swelling.

Keeping potassium in the 4700-11,000 mg/d range will allow you to consume as much salt as you like.

It is hard to get enough salt from most natural foods, and if you don’t eat any processed foods (including fermented foods, cheese, bread, and sausages) then you will need to salt your food to get enough.

Most salt comes from processed foods, and only 5-6% comes from adding salt at the table. If you need to reduce sodium, cut out processed foods, not added salt.

As a general rule, limit all processed foods (including fermented foods, bread, cheese, and sausages, as well as deli meats, fast foods, and packaged snacks and deserts) to 20% of the diet (you can use weight or volume, since this is a rough measure), and add salt to all of your meals, never adding more than needed to make it taste good. If you still crave salt doing this, feel free to add additional fermented foods, cheese, or high-quality salty snacks. If you are out of touch with your salt needs, try a “salt reset.”

Manganese is the spicey mineral. Soon we will see that manganese is overwhelmingly abundant in plants, with few exceptions, and is exceedingly high in spices.

Manganese Protects Mitochondria, Cleans Up Ammonia and Glutamate, and Makes Glucose, Collagen, and Cholesterol

In the last lesson we saw that magnesium has its hand in practically everything. In this lesson we will see that manganese, abbreviated "Mn," specializes much more narrowly in a handful of specific tasks.

Manganese protects mitochondria from oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is the wear and tear on our tissues that happens as we age. It gets worse in disease states or with exposure to toxins. Mitochondria are the "power houses of the cell" responsible for most of our ATP production. So manganese specializes in protecting our ability to produce clean energy through thick and thin.
Manganese helps clean up ammonia. We generate ammonia when we break down protein. We might do that because we ate more protein than we needed, because we didn't eat enough carbs and need to make our own from protein, or because we didn't eat enough food and need to burn protein for energy. Ammonia itself is highly toxic, and manganese helps us convert it to non-toxic forms.

Manganese helps us make glucose from lactate, a substance that our muscles produce during high-intensity exercise, and from protein. That means manganese could help protect us from low blood sugar, which makes us weak, irritable, and hangry when we haven't eaten or when we've crashed from a sugar high, and it could also help us stay energized during intense activity. For this, it directly teams up with magnesium.

Manganese works together with biotin to create the metabolic flame in which all food is burned for energy. For this, it directly teams up with magnesium too.

It helps get rid of excess glutamate. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that flips switches within our brains into the "on" position. Too much glutamate can cause seizures and a number of psychiatric diseases. Some people get problems from eating glutamate as MSG or in fermented foods or slowly cooked proteins, called "glutamate sensitivity." Manganese prevents glutamate from causing trouble.
Manganese is needed for collagen synthesis. This makes it important to strong bones, healthy joints, beautiful skin, and wound healing. In previous lessons we discussed how copper and vitamin C strengthen collagen. This is collagen that was initially made using manganese!

Manganese is used to join sugars and proteins together into substances that help organize minerals in bone, lubricate joints, and protect blood vessels from accumulating plaque.
Manganese is needed to make cholesterol. Cholesterol, in turn, is used to make all of the sex hormones, as well as hormones that regulate our mineral balance, blood pressure, and blood sugar. Cholesterol is used to make the membranes that envelop all of our cells and their internal compartments, the bile acids that help us digest fat and absorb fat-soluble vitamins, and the connections between our brain cells that allow us to learn and form memories.

Manganese Deficiency: Poor Bone Health, Skin Rash, Low Cholesterol

Here's what we know about severe manganese deficiencies:

Children will lose minerals from their bones and won't grow as well as they should.
Cholesterol levels drop.
A skin rash known as miliaria crystallina develops on the upper torso. It is only a little red, and has blisters formed from sweat accumulating beneath the skin. It gets scaly when it heals.
Weight loss, slowed growth of hair and nails, and reddening of the beard also occurred in one person.
Manganese, Osteoporosis, and PMS

In addition, people with suboptimal manganese intakes have lower bone mineral density, are more likely to develop osteoporosis, and if they are women who suffer with PMS they are are likely to have more pain and more severe mood disturbances.

How Much Manganese Do We Need?

So how much manganese do we need?

Let's start with the adequate intake (AI), which is what the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine set as a recommendation instead of an RDA. They set an AI whenever they consider the evidence to be inadequate to set a more rigorous RDA.

For all age groups, the AI is set as the median intake for that age group. This means that half of people in the general population consume less than the AI and half consume more. In pregnant women, they adjusted the AI upward based on the amount of weight gained in a healthy pregnancy.

The AI starts at 3 micrograms per day (mcg/d) for infants 0-6 months. It increases to 600 mcg/d during the next six months of life. For children aged 1-3, it increases to 1.2 milligrams per day (mg/d). A milligram is 1000 micrograms, so this is double the AI of infants 7-12 months old. It then increases to 4.5 mg/d for ages 4-8; 1.6 mg/d for girls aged 9-18; 1.9 mg/d for boys aged 9-13 and 2.2 mg/d for boys aged 14-18.

For adult women, the AI is 1.8 mg/d. For adult men, it is 2.3 mg/d. It increases to 2 mg/d during pregnancy and 2.6 mg/d during lactation.

There are some good reasons to question whether the AI is enough.

The RDA for magnesium was set based on "balance" studies, meaning it was set as the amount of magnesium that would prevent us from steadily losing magnesium from our bodies over time. The FNB had balance studies for manganese, but thought their results were too variable to trust. Ultimately they dismissed the balance studies because no one seems to be deficient in manganese in the general population, and they consume less than what the balance studies suggest they need.

But this seems rather dubious. We know that no one is getting the characteristic rash that occurred when scientists put volunteers on a severely deficient diet, but we don't know that everyone has enough manganese to maximally protect their mitochondria from oxidative stress. The balance studies showed that we would steadily lose manganese from our bodies over time if we only consumed the AI. How can that possibly be enough? In every other case, the optimal intake of a nutrient is at least as high, and usually higher, than what we need just to stay in balance.

Had the RDA been made on balance studies, it would have been set at 2.5-3 mg/d for adults. For girls aged 12-15, it would have been set at 3.6 mg/d. It is very easy to eat far more than this from high-quality foods, and plant-rich diets can provide intakes as high as 11-20 mg/d.

Therefore, I recommend the following:

For adult men and women, 3 mg/d.

For adolescent girls, 3.6 mg/d.

For infants 0-6 months, I would keep the current AI of 3 mcg/d. Breast milk manganese is very low and this is probably to protect the infant, who has not yet developed the ability to get rid of excess manganese.

For all other children and adolescents, I would aim for 1.5 mg for every 1000 Calories.

Absorption of Manganese from Whole Grains, Nuts, Seeds, and Legumes

Before we cover the foods, we should note that manganese absorption from foods rich in phytate, which includes whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes, is about half as efficient as the absorption from vegetables. You can improve the absorption by soaking, souring, sprouting, or fermenting phytate-rich foods. If you do, or avoid these foods entirely, you may need a little less than 3 mg/d.

Manganese in Foods: The Five Tiers

The following list of foods is organized around the assumption that most adults need about 3 mg/d. Remember to adjust upward for adolescent girls and downward for adolescent boys and children.

Since a number of spices are exceptionally rich in manganese, they are included in the tiers assuming that a serving is two grams, which might be added to a VERY spice-heavy meal.

TIER 1

Tier 1 provides 3 mg or more per 100 g. With these foods, you can hit the target with a single serving per day.

Tier 1 contains a single animal food: mussels.

It contains a few legumes: chickpeas, winged beans, and tofu.

It contains quite a number of grains: dark rye flour, oat bran, oats, rice bran, wheat germ, teff, wheat, triticale, and brown rice.

It has some nuts and seeds: hazelnuts, hickory nuts, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds, and squash seeds.

It has these two veggies: fireweed leaves and epazote.

Tier 1 does not contain any spices.

TIER 2

Tier 2 provides 1.5-2.99 mg per 100 g. This allows you to hit or exceed the target with two servings per day.

Tier 2 has a large number of legumes. These include certain peanuts (Spanish, Virginia, Valencia), certain soy products (soy flour, edamame, natto), pink or red lentils, mothbeans, white beans, pigeon peas, adzuki beans, cowpeas, and the following beans: lima, broad, yardlong, hyacinth, and mungo.

Tier 2 also has a number of nuts and seeds: almonds and almond butter, cashews, sunflower seed kernels, chestnuts, sisymbrium seeds (used in certain mustards), sesame seeds, and flax seeds.

It also has a number of grains: rye grain, medium rye flour, spelt, quinoa, buckwheat, sorghum, hulled barley, sprouted wheat, and millet.

Tier 2 has one fungus (cloud ear), two veggies (garlic and grape leaves), and three fruit (pineapple, coconut, and muscadine grapes).Tier 2 does not contain any spices or animal foods.

TIER 3

Tier 3 provides 0.6-1.49 mg per 100 g of food, or per 2 grams of spices. This allows you to meet or exceed the target with 3-5 servings per day.

Tier 3 has some animal foods. It has dry salami, Pacific oysters, and the following fish: fresh-water bass, trout, walleye pike, burbot, drum, perch, rainbow smelt, sunfish, and sucker.

It has two seaweeds (wakame and laver).

Tier 3 has some fruit: coconut milk and cream, loganberries, American-type grapes, raspberries, and blackberries.

It has some nuts and seeds: acorns, beechnuts, cashew butter, tahini, sesame seed kernels, and lotus seeds.

It has a number of grains: wild rice, whole sorghum flour, white rice flour, barley malt flour, light rye flour, barley flour, corn, couscous, and... gasp... regular old white flour!

It has a lot of legumes, including some soy products (tofu, soy sauce, soybean curd cheese, miso, tempeh, and sprouted soybeans) split green peas, lentils, and the following beans: great northern, navy, pink, yellow, small white, young lima, French, pinto, kidney, black, mung, black turtle, cranberry, and fava.

Tier 3 has a number of veggies: potato skins, kale, spinach, okra, collard greens, lambsquarters, eppaw, drumstick leaves, wild rose hips, chrysanthemum leaves and garland, amaranth leaves, stinging nettles, cattail, and stem lettuce.

Tier 3 is the first tier to have spices! It has cloves, ginger, saffron, and cardamom.

TIER 4

As we move into tier 4, we are no longer talking about foods that are "good sources of manganese," but instead talking about what has to make up 25-70% of your diet if you don't seek out Mn-rich foods from the top three tiers. Tier 4 provides 0.33-0.59 mg per 100 g of food, or per 2 g spices, allowing you to meet or exceed the target with 1-2 pounds of food, or with 10-18 grams of spices (which is extreme).

The two spices in tier 4 are cinnamon and turmeric.

This tier has a small number of animal foods: ham, pork liver, New Zealand lamb liver, whelk, and eastern farmed oysters.

Importantly, liver should be kept to two 100-gram servings per week to avoid overdosing on other nutrients like vitamin A and copper.

Tier 4 has one mushroom (morel), two seaweeds (agar, irishmoss), and two seeds (whole pumpkin seeds and whole squash seeds).

It has some grains: blue corn flour, white or yellow cornmeal, rice noodles, and refined sorghum flour.

Tier 4 has a number of fruit: strawberries, blueberries, wild raspberries, boysenberries, Japanese persimmons, chokecherries, durian, and prickly pear.

Tier 4 has some legumes: blackeye cowpeas, carob flour, sprouted lentils, sprouted or regular peas, sprouted navy beans, tamari sauce, and okara (soy pulp).

Finally, tier 4 has lots of veggies: cilantro, parsnips, leeks, turnip greens, endive, mustard spinach, beet greens, wasabi root, cassava, taro, chives, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, Brussels sprouts, beets, yam, broccoli raab, arrowroot flour, garden cress, bitter gourd leafy tips, cowpea leafy tips, nopales, pokeberry shoots, poi, arrowhead, pumpkin leaves, borage, dock, and Chinese waterchestnuts.

TIER 5

Tier 5 provides 136-329 mcg per 100 g food. This allows you to meet or exceed the target with 2-5 pounds of food. These foods could only meet your requirement by themselves if you used them for your entire diet. You would have to exclude junk food entirely, and if you have a low food intake you would be vulnerable to deficiency.

Spices providing 136-329 mcg per 2 g are included. You would have to use 18-44 g spices per day to meet the target from the spices alone, which is close to impossible, but they could make a meaningful contribution when combined with other foods.

For example, getting half your allotment of manganese from the tier 5 spices would allow you to get the remainder from 1-2.5 pounds of tier 5 foods. If you have a low food intake, this might be the one thing that allows you to scrape by on tier 5 foods. But if you eat 4 or 5 pounds of food a day, which is common, the spices would allow you to consume a couple pounds worth of food that doesn't make the cut.

Tier 5 contains a number of animal products.

These include many livers (beef, lamb, turkey, duck, veal, chicken), pork liver products (pork liver cheese, braunschweiger, and liverwurst), and other organs (pancreas of pork, veal, or beef; beef kidney, chicken or turkey giblets).

They include two more common meats from land animals: bologna and a skirt steak trimmed to zero visible fat.

They include hard goat cheese, two shellfish (eastern wild oysters, blue crab), and three finfish (northern pike, crayfish, rainbow trout).

Tier 5 has one grain (corn bran), one variety of seaweed (kelp), and five mushrooms (chanterelle, shiitake, brown, Italian, or crimini).

It has one nut (ginkgo nuts) and two seeds (radish and sprouted alfalfa).

Tier 5 contains soymilk and the following beans: broad, winged, green or yellow snap, young Hyacinth, young yardlong, sprouted mung, and sprouted kidney.

It has quite a number of fruits: medjool and delget noor dates, wild blackberries, bananas, cranberries, raisins, currants, nance, mamey sapote, abiyuch, rowal, guavas, avocados, loquats, gooseberries, yellow plantains, and coconut water.

Tier 5 contains LOTS of veggies: arugula, purslane, shallots, butterbur, prairie turnips, bamboo shoots, lotus root, drumstick pods, sweet potato, artichokes, cardoon, green leaf lettuce, cauliflower, watercress, red cabbage, Hawaiian mountain yam, green or red hot chili peppers, chicory root, burdock root, eggplant, broccoli, raw ginger root, Hungarian peppers, red leaf lettuce, rhubarb, Chinese cabbage, serrano peppers, yautia, savoy cabbage, butterhead lettuce, summer or winter squash, arrowroot, cabbage, fresh parsley, boy choy, cabbage, asparagus, celeriac, Tahitian taro, cauliflower, cos or romaine lettuce, potatoes with the skin, tomatillos, carrots, kohlrabi, and radicchio.

It also has these spices: black pepper, dried spearmint, dried parsley, dried basil, curry powder, bay leaf, dried tarragon, dried thyme, and celery seed.

Foods That Don't Make the Cut

Here's what doesn't make the cut:

Eggs, most dairy products, most meat products, sugar, fat, and any of the seafoods or plant products that weren't listed in the five tiers.

Manganese, Plants, Spices, and Carnivore Diets

Clearly, the overwhelming pattern is that manganese is mostly found in plant foods and is exceptionally high in some spices Indeed, the main determinant of how much manganese people get within the general population is how many plants they eat. Median manganese intakes are close to 2 mg/d, but vegetarians often get 11-20 mg/d. The distribution of manganese in plant foods is so broad that one could easily get enough on a paleo diet, a keto diet, or a grain-based diet, as long as one eats enough plants. Even white rice and white flour make it into tier 3!

But manganese is very difficult to get enough of on a carnivore diet. Carnivores should eat mussels (tier 1) as often as they can stand, and focus on the tier 3 seafoods. Carnivores who don't like or can't have seafoods should focus on dry/hard salami (tier 3), ham (tier 4), two servings of liver per week (tier 4 or 5, depending on the species), bologna (tier 5), skirt steak with all the fat trimmed off (tier 5), and hard goat cheese (tier 5). Notably, the processed meats are likely to be very low in other nutrients carnivores run short on, especially vitamin C, and it is preferable to rely on fresh meats and seafood.

Another pattern that stands out is that spices can easily rescue an otherwise plant-poor diet. For example, someone who isn't carnivore but hates eating large volumes of plants can get enough manganese on an animal food-heavy diet by strategic use of spices, especially cloves, ginger, saffron, and cardamom (tier 3) as well as cinnamon and turmeric (tier 4).

Other contributions to manganese deficiency besides diet are not well documented. However, anyone with digestive disorders that hurt the absorption of other nutrients should consider the possibility that they are poorly absorbing manganese.

People who eat a lot of plants shouldn't need to supplement, but people who don't should consider it.

Manganese Toxicity: Parkinson's Symptoms

But first, is manganese toxic?

Too much manganese is definitely toxic. This is best documented in workers who inhale manganese dust, like welters and smelters. When workers inhale manganese dust, it bypasses the liver, the organ that would help remove it from the body, and goes straight to the brain. There, it causes neurological problems that are very similar to Parkinson's disease.

In one documented case, people who consumed water contaminated with batteries and containing 14-28 mg/L manganese, which would likely provide them with 28-56 mg per day, developed severe neurotoxicity.

Toxicity from lower amounts of manganese is controversial. In Greek villages where the water contained 1.8-2.3 mg/L, which would provide about 3.6-4.6 mg/d, people who drank more contaminated water had mild motor deficits reminiscent of Parkinson's disease. But these results could not be replicated in Germany, and they are hard to square with the fact that vegetarians consume 11-20 mg/d and don't have through-the-roof rates of Parkinson's-like neurological problems. It may be that the Greek villagers were already eating huge amounts of manganese in their food (which was grown withc manganese-contaminated water), and/or that manganese in water is much more highly absorbed than manganese from other sources. Indeed, we only absorb about 2-5% of the manganese from our food and about 8% from supplements.

Manganese Supplements

The effectiveness of different manganese supplements is not well-studied. Here are my recommendations:

Consider supplementing if you are carnivore, or eat very few plant foods.
Do NOT give supplements to babies. Breastmilk contains very little manganese because babies can't remove excess manganese from their bodies like adults can.
Don't supplement if you have chronic liver disease. This hurts your ability to clear out extra manganese.
Don't supplement if you have iron deficiency. This makes manganese more likely to reach harmful levels in your brain.
If you supplement with manganese, regardless of the form, limit it to 3 mg/d. This is the equivalent of 6 mg/d from food and there is no evidence anyone needs more than this.
Wrapping Up

To wrap up:

Manganese protects your mitochondria's ability to burn clean energy, helps you tolerate protein, keeps your blood sugar up, protects against glutamate sensitivity, keeps your blood vessels free of plaque, keeps your joints well-oiled, makes your bones strong, and helps your wounds heal faster.

Severe manganese deficiency causes low cholesterol, and a bubbly or scaly dermatitis.

Manganese is likely helpful for optimizing hormones, for preventing osteoporosis, and for improving symptoms of PMS.

The best way to get enough manganese is to eat lots of plants.

If you hate eating large volumes of plants, certain spices can rescue you, especially cloves, ginger, saffron, cardamom, turmeric, and cinnamon.

Carnivores are vulnerable to manganese deficiency and should focus on mussels and tier 3 seafoods. Carnivores who hate or can't have seafoods have the land animal foods in tiers 4 and 5 as their only options and should strongly consider supplementing.

Supplements shouldn't be given to infants or taken by people with chronic liver disease or iron deficiency.

Supplements, regardless of form, should be limited to 3 mg/d.

Magnesium is Needed to Make Proteins and Use Energy

In fact, just by virtue of only TWO of the hundreds of things magnesium does, it has it's hand in everything:

It is needed to make proteins, and everything that exists in the body is either a protein or is made by proteins.

It is needed to utilize energy, and everything that happens in the body requires energy.
Let's take a slightly deeper look at each one of those.

Magnesium and Proteins

Proteins are key components of all life. You get some protein from any food, but you get most of it from animal flesh, eggs, dairy, and beans. You eat this protein, and then break it down and build it back up into thousands of unique proteins that fulfill critical functions.

Thousands of the things that make your body work are proteins, but many are not. For example, cholesterol is not a protein. Neither is anything made from cholesterol, such as estrogen and testosterone (sex hormones), cortisol (a stress hormone), or aldosterone (a hormone that regulates your blood pressure and your levels of sodium and potassium). Yet, all these things are made with proteins. Enzymes are proteins that break things down, build things up, or convert one thing to another. Just to make cholesterol requires almost 40 enzymes. To convert cholesterol to something else, such as a hormone, requires even more enzymes. So, thousands of things within us are proteins and EVERYTHING is made with proteins.

The information needed to make each protein is stored within your DNA. Your DNA is divided into genes, where each gene has the information to make one protein, or a small set of proteins. Making a protein from the information within a gene is called EXPRESSING the gene. There are a handful of enzymes involved in expressing genes and they require magnesium. That makes magnesium directly required for the production of every single protein. And since proteins make everything else, it makes magnesium indirectly required for the production of everything else.

Magnesium and Energy

While it may seem on the surface that "energy" is mostly needed to get up and do things, especially things that require a lot of intensity, incredible amounts of energy are also needed just to keep you alive, and even to keep you calm and well rested.

This is because everything in the universe by nature tends to spread out and mix together randomly over time. To maintain order in the face of this tendency requires continuously investing huge amounts of energy. You can get a sense of this relationship by thinking of your room. When it's subject to random events (something falls, something gets knocked over, you put something down without much thought), it gets messy because everything is mixed together randomly. In order to clean your room, you need to invest energy and effort. When you do, it appears orderly because you've put everything in its unique place.

You can see this order in yourself by looking in the mirror. You have one place for your nose, another for your eyes, quite another for your bum bum and a totally different one for your feet. It is all the more true that the inside of your body is orderly, only the complexity is stunningly greater. Right down to the level that only the most powerful microscopes can detect, cells are incredibly ordered in mind-bogglingly complex ways. This all requires energy to maintain.

To take an example, calcium is the on-switch for muscle contraction. In order to allow your muscles to REST, that calcium has to be stored away in specialized compartments so that it isn't always triggering muscular contraction. If calcium were randomly distributed, your muscles would be contracting randomly, or would just stay contracted all the time. In fact, the tremors of Parkinson's result from a decline in the energy spent controlling muscular contraction. When we die, within a few hours all our muscles stiffen up. This is a condition known as rigor mortis and lasts a few days. This is because we no longer produce the energy we need to keep muscles relaxed.

So the highest-energy state is well-controlled, intense physical activity. At rest, we spend less energy, but rest is not the lowest-energy state. Beneath this is loss of muscle relaxation, causing muscular tension, cramps, and poorly controlled, random activity, such as tremors and spasms. This is what happens when we fail to produce and utilize enough energy.

Much like your dollar is the basic currency of your money if you're American, or your Euro if you're European, or whatever your national currency happens to be, the basic currency of energy within your cells is ATP. The six B vitamins that we said are most fundamentally involved in energy metabolism — B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B7 — all play their roles by helping us make ATP. Iron and copper, which we just covered in the last few lessons, both help us make ATP, too. What magnesium does is stabilize the ATP molecule. Literally everything that ATP ever does, it does joined at the hip to magnesium. ATP on its own is impotent. ATP teamed with magnesium is the cellular superhero.

Magnesium, Calcium, and Other Electrolytes

Let's take, for example, the interaction between magnesium and calcium:

The parathyroid glands, several glands that sit on top of your thyroid gland within your neck, make a hormone known as parathyroid hormone (PTH) when your blood runs low in calcium. PTH activates vitamin D in a two-step process to an active hormone that helps increase the calcium in your blood.
Since magnesium is needed to make every protein, it is needed to make PTH and to make the two enzymes needed for the two-step activation of vitamin D.

Once activated, vitamin D causes you to express specific genes that raise the amount of calcium in your blood. Since gene expression requires making proteins, it requires magnesium.

Since calcium is the on-switch for muscle contraction, we need to keep it sequestered in special compartments to prevent it from causing constant or irregular contraction. This requires ATP, and everything that requires ATP requires magnesium.

So, in someone with a severe magnesium deficiency, their blood levels of PTH, activated vitamin D, and calcium are all low. Doctors can inject them with PTH, or with activated vitamin D, but these treatments don't do anything because PTH can't activate vitamin D without magnesium and activated vitamin D can't bring your blood calcium back to normal without magnesium.

On top of this, calcium isn't being stored properly, so muscles are twitching, spasming, or cramping, and the heart may skip beats, flutter, or beat irregularly. Since the calcium levels in your blood are low, and since calcium controls neurotransmitter release, you can also develop neurological dysfunction. As we discussed in the lesson on calcium, when this gets really bad it can lead to confusion, seizures, coma, and death. Although the calcium level in your blood is running low, many tissues have more calcium than they should, and the calcium inside them is not properly sequestered. That means there is MORE calcium available to bind to phosphate or oxalate and cause soft tissue calcification. This means magnesium deficiency can contribute to heart disease and kidney stones. If calcium is winding up in kidney stones and blood vessels where it doesn't belong, there is less available for the bones and teeth. That can contribute to osteoporosis, and perhaps to tooth decay.

Magnesium partners with ATP not just to control the distribution of calcium, but also to control the distribution of sodium, potassium, chloride, and phosphate. The nervous system uses sodium, potassium, and chloride to control most of the activity that your neurons engage in. The loss of control over these minerals during magnesium deficiency contributes another layer to the neurological dysfunction.

Magnesium deficiency can also hurt the kidney's ability to get rid of excess sodium and phosphate. The excess sodium that results can raise blood pressure and contribute to swelling, known medically as edema. The excess phosphate that results can partner up with the misbehaving calcium and worsen the risk of soft tissue calcification even further.

Magnesium and Fatigue

Being unable to use ATP underlies most of these effects, and it will also make you feel weak and fatigued.

Magnesium and Glutamate Sensitivity, Asthma, and Pain

Magnesium also does some other cool things. It acts as the off-switch for some of the receptors that get activated by glutamate. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that switches neurons on. So, magnesium is an important off switch for hundreds of millions of neurons.

This means magnesium might be important for preventing:

Glutamate sensitivity, a condition where people have negative reactions to MSG, a food additive, or to fermented foods or slowly cooked protein-rich foods.
Asthma, since glutamate can constrict the airways.
Pain, since pain is partly governed by glutamate.
Magnesium and Hearing Loss, PMS, Pregnancy, Migraines, Diabetes, and More

And here are a few more cool things magnesium does:

Magnesium supplements protect against noise-induced hearing loss.

It helps with depression and PMS.

Injections of magnesium sulfate help prevent the progression of preeclampsia to eclampsia. Preeclampsia is a complication of pregnancy involving high blood pressure and swelling. Eclampsia involves seizures and can be fatal.

Magnesium injections are also used to prevent neurological damage in infants born prematurely or admitted to intensive care shortly after birth.

Magnesium supplementation seems to help with migraines, and severe migraines can be halted with magnesium injections.

In diabetics with magnesium deficiency, correcting the deficiency lessens the severity of the diabetes.

How Much Magnesium Do We Need?

So, how much do we need? Let's start with the RDA.

Up through the age of 30, the RDA for adult men is 400 milligrams per day (mg/d) and for adult women it is 310 mg/d. These are based on the amounts needed to keep total body stores from dropping over time. For adults 31 and older, these slightly increase to 420 mg/d for men and 320 mg/d for women, based on the same criteria.

The RDA for pregnant women adds 40 mg/d to the existing RDA for the woman's age group. This was set on the basis of how much lean mass a woman gains during a healthy pregnancy, and how much magnesium we would expect that new lean mass to contain. Lean mass, by the way, is mostly muscle, bone, and internal organs. Everything except your fat tissue gets counted as lean mass.

The RDA for nursing moms is kept the same as the RDA for non-pregnant women. Although a nursing mom does need to put magnesium into her milk, she will take some from her bone, along with calcium and phosphorus, and she will pee out less. Consuming extra magnesium doesn't seem to change that, perhaps because she would still need to take calcium and phosphorus from the bone even if she got more magnesium in her diet.

For children and adolescents, the RDA is made to support the accumulation of an apparently adequate amount of magnesium during growth. This was based on data from kids aged 9 through 18, and was adjusted downward by bodyweight for younger kids. It increases from 80 mg/d in children aged 1-3, to 130 mg/d in children aged 4-8, to 240 mg/d in children aged 9-13. Finally, for kids aged 14-18, it increases to 410 mg/d for boys and 360 mg/d for girls. For infants, there was not enough evidence to set an RDA, but an AI was set based on average magnesium intakes and the fact that these appear to give infants sufficient accumulation of magnesium to support their growth. The AI for infants under six months old is 30 mg/d and for infants from six months to one year old is 75 mg/d.

Since the RDA is based on making sure we maintain stable concentrations of magnesium in our body over time, and not on optimizing any health concerns, perhaps we would find we need even more magnesium when we start looking at health effects. However, there are almost no studies that examine whether doses higher than the RDA improve health better than doses equal to the RDA.

There are some exceptions:

After a potentially fatal event of brain bleeding, known as an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, magnesium levels drop. Doctors can maintain them in the normal range by giving intravenous magnesium in the amount of 1536 mg/d, which is better than giving 720 mg/

Patients with chronic kidney disease develop soft tissue calcification. Magnesium supplements help with this, and one study found that in a mix of men and women, 720 mg/d was better than 360. Although 360 is below the RDA for men, when added to the amount they were already consuming in the diet, it gave them more than the RDA.
Although there are no head-to-head comparisons of different doses, studies tend to be more successful when treating migraines with 600 mg/d instead of lower doses, and when lowering blood pressure with 700 mg/d instead of lower doses.

Overall, the data supports using the RDA for a target of our basic needs and using supplements to go a little higher for specific health problems that seem related to magnesium deficiency.

Magnesium in Foods: The Five Tiers

OK, let's look at foods now!

TIER 1

Tier 1 provides 420 mg or more per 100 g, which allows you to meet or exceed the RDA for men over 30 with one serving.

It includes rice and wheat bran, soy flour, emi-tsunomata Canadian-cultivated dry seaweed, and several seeds: hulled hemp, shelled pumpkin or squash, and watermelon.

TIER 2

Tier 2 provides 210-419 mg per 100 g, and allows you to meet or exceed the RDA for men over 30 with two servings. Tier 2 contains some grains: buckwheat, wheat germ, and oat bran.

And it contains a very large variety of legumes, seeds, and nuts.

Tier 2 legumes: many peanuts and peanut butter (see tier 3 for others), soybeans and most soybean products, catjang cowpeas, and these beans: moth, yardlong, hyacinth, mungo, lima, and yellow.

Tier 2 seeds: sesame seeds and sesame products, flax, chia, dried lotus, sisymbrium (used in certain mustards) and hulled and dried but not roasted sunflower. Pumpkin and squash fit in here if they are not hulled.

Tier 2 nuts: almonds and almond products, Brazil, pili, cashews, pine, and butternuts.

TIER 3

Tier 3 provides 84-209 mg per 100 g, and allows you to meet or exceed the RDA for an adult male over 30 with 3-5 servings.

Tier 3 contains some grains: quinoa, teff, oats, wild or brown rice, sorghum, wheat or spelt, dark rye, triticale, hulled barley, corn, millet.

American cheese makes it onto tier 3, but most dairy products don't.

Tier 3 has a few seafoods: cod, chinook salmon, and whelk.

It has three fruits: tamarinds, prickly pears, and dried coconut.

Tier 3 has lots of legumes: lupins, common cowpeas, many peanuts and peanut products (Valencia, Spanish, and Virginia), pigeon peas, tofu and natto, chickpea flour, and these beans: fava, white, great northern, mung, French, baby lima, small white, pink, winged, pinto, navy, black, black turtle, kidney, cranberry, soy, and adzuki.

Tier 3 also has some nuts: walnuts, hickorynuts, hazelnuts, Chinese or Japanese chestnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, pistachio nuts, and acorn flour.

Hulled and dry roasted sunflower seeds fit in tier 3 as well.

Finally, tier 3 has some seaweed: irishmoss, kelp, wakame, rehydrated emi-tsunomata; and some other veggies: fireweed leaves, dock, grape leaves, lambsquarters, and bitter gourd leaves.

TIER 4

As we move into tier 4, we are no longer talking about foods that are "good sources of magnesium," but instead talking about what has to make up 25-70% of your diet if you don't seek out Mg-rich foods from the top three tiers. Tier 4 provides 46-83 mg per 100 g, allowing you to meet or exceed the RDA for adult males over 30 with 1-2 pounds of food.

Tier 4 contains some grains: pearled barley, corn bran, and medium rye flour.

It contains some cheese: gjetost, hard goat, and parmesan. It also contains veal loin.

Some seafood makes it into this tier: mackerel, sablefish, pollock, ling, haddock, sturgeon, kippered herring, turbot, tuna, shark, crab, and abalone.

Tier 4 has some legumes: pigeon peas, chickpeas, peas, lentils, carob, and these soy products: tofu, tempeh, edamame, and miso.

It has three fruits: medjool dates, longans, and dried coconut.

It has two nuts: acorns and chestnuts.

And two seeds: breadnut, and raw but not dried lotus.

Tier 4 also has these veggies: spinach, beet greens, sweet potato leaves, purslane, agar, potato flour, raw wasabi root, jute, artichokes, lemon grass, okra, amaranth, borage, nopales, arrowhead, arugula, and taro.

TIER 5

Tier 5 provides 19-45 mg per 100 g, allowing you to meet or exceed the RDA for a male over 30 with 2-5 pounds of food. These foods could only meet your requirement by themselves if you used them for your entire diet. You would have to exclude junk food entirely, and if you have a low food intake you would be vulnerable to deficiency.

Virtually all beef, lamb, pork, poultry, game fall into tier 5. However, there are a handful of cuts in each category that do not.

Most cheeses tested make it into tier 5: cheddar, dry white, monterey, mozzarella, muenster, colby, queso asadero, queso fresco, port de salut, blue, caraway, cream, cheshire, limburger, brie, camembert, ricotta, and feta.

Virtually all finfish and shellfish fall into tier 5. The exceptions are the small number listed in tiers 2-4, as well as the ones in the next section that don't make the cut.

Some milk and yogurt products make it into tier 5, but most do not. Fresh eggs do not make the cut either.

The following fresh fruits make it into tier 5: coconut, coconut milk and cream, plantains, horned melon, currants, rowal, persimmons, durian, avocados, jackfruit, passionfruit, bananas, breadfruit, abiyuch, currants, raspberries, blackberries, guavas, longanberries, papayas, kumquats, and nance fruit.

The following dried fruits make it in as well: delget noor dates, litchis, peaches, prunes, raisins, pears, apricots, apples, and cherries.

Tier 5 has two nuts: ginkgo, and European chestnuts.

Tier 5 has many veggies: drumstick pods and leaves, taro leaves, ginger, potatoes, chives, New Zealand spinach, burdock root, garden cress, dandelion greens, kale, zucchini, taro, mustard greens, turnip greens, acorn squash, chicory greens, green beans, collard greens, cilantro, arrowroot, broccoli, garlic, chili peppers, beets, Brussels sprouts, lotus root, summer squash, sweet potato, Chinese waterchestnuts, cassava, shallots, watercress, yams, kohlrabi, and morel mushrooms.

HONORABLE MENTION: SPICES

An honorable mention should be given to all the spices: covering their distribution in the five tiers would double the space devoted to this discussion. The reality is that hardly anyone eats 100 grams of spices a day, in total, nevermind 100 grams of an individual spice. However, keep in mind that the more spices you use, the more magnesium they will add to your diet.

FOODS THAT DON'T MAKE THE CUT

Foods that don't make the top five tiers essentially detract from your magnesium status. Even though they have small amounts, they don't have enough to meet the requirement even if you consume five pounds of them per day. And if you get most of your magnesium from tier 5 foods, you won't have any room for these foods at all. Therefore, you should ONLY feel the liberty to eat these foods once you know you've met your requirement from foods in the top 4 tiers.

The foods that don't make the cut are:

All fats and oils

Fresh eggs

A small number of cuts of meat, even organ meats

These seafoods: smoked salmon, eastern wild oysters, flatfish, cisco, roughy orange, pout, pickled herring, and jellyfish

Most foods in the other categories that weren't mentioned in the top five tiers

Clearly, the greatest coverage of tiers 1 and 2 comes from nuts, seeds, and legumes. Seaweed, a few other seafoods, fruits, and vegetables start popping up in tier 3. Tier 4 shows greater prominence for seafood, a greater diversity of vegetables, and a few grains and cheeses. Most cheese, seafood, meat and poultry, and commonly consumed fruits and vegetables fall into tier 5. Grains are spattered throughout.

Dietary Patterns: Carnivore, Autoimmune Paleo, Keto, High-Fat, Junk Food

This presents a challenge to several dietary patterns.

CARNIVORE

Most carnivore foods are in tier 5, making it difficult to get enough magnesium for someone with low food intake. Additionally, certain cuts of meat do not make it into tier 5. Carnivores should focus on the seafood and cheeses in tiers 3 and 4, or supplement.

AUTOIMMUNE PALEO

Although the paleo diet allows nuts and seeds, the autoimmune protocol (AIP) version of paleo does not. Those on the AIP should focus on the seaweed in tiers 1 and 3, and on the fish and shellfish in tiers 3 and 4.

KETO AND HIGH-FAT

Ketogenic diets, and high-fat diets more generally, run the risk of magnesium deficiency simply because all added fats fail to make the five tiers. Most animal products are in tier 5, where there is no room for added fat. Choosing liberally from among the low-carb nuts and seeds will allow keto dieters to obtain higher-tier magnesium-rich foods to compensate for added fat in their diet.

JUNK FOOD

White flour, white sugar, and fat are all extremely low in magnesium. Meat is low in magnesium as well. A burger on a bun made from white flour with a side of fries and a soda would be very deficient in magnesium. Keeping junk food low in the diet is important for magnesium status.

Other Causes of Magnesium Deficiency

More than just the magnesium content of the diet is relevant:

High-fiber diets lower magnesium absorption.

Low-protein diets lower magnesium absorption.

Proton pump inhibitors, antacids, vomiting, diarrhea, ulcerative colitis, pancreatitis, and anything that hurts fat absorption will hurt magnesium absorption.

Diabetes, anything that causes increased urination including excessive intake of water, and acute injuries all increase magnesium losses.

Sweating from hot weather, exercise, or sauna use, as well as burn injury, cause magnesium to be lost through the skin.

Some antibiotics, antifungals, and anticancer drugs hurt magnesium absorption.

Chronic alcohol abuse hurts magnesium absorption and increases its loss in the urine.

When a disease causing bone loss is treated, magnesium can suddenly move into the bone, causing blood levels to drop dangerously low.

During the recovery from an eating disorder or an extended fast, magnesium can be pushed into cells, causing blood levels to drop dangerously low.

There are rare genetic disorders in magnesium absorption or retention.

Should You Supplement With Magnesium?

There are two good reasons to supplement with magnesium:

You don't consistently meet the RDA. In this case, use whatever you estimate would bring you up to the RDA, when added to the rest of your diet, such as 1-200 mg/d.
You have signs of deficiency and one or more of the factors listed above that increase magnesium needs. In this case, you should use the dose that gives you the best results.
Potential Harms of Magnesium Supplements: Loose Stools and Magnesium Toxicity

In general, the only harm you can expect from moderately dosed magnesium supplements is loose stools or diarrhea. Limiting your supplement to 350 mg/d and spreading it out evenly across meals will reduce the risk of loose stools, as will using the right type of magnesium, which we'll talk about in a minute.

However, high doses of magnesium (above 900 mg/d or so), or supplementing with magnesium when you have kidney problems, can become more dangerous. If your blood pressure drops too much, your heart rate gets abnormally slow or fast, or you develop twitching or spasming, you should cut back on the supplement and ask your doctor to test your blood levels.

Which Magnesium Supplements Should You Take?

There are lots of magnesium supplements, so let's paint them with a broad brush for some general conclusions:

Oxide, chloride, and sulfate have lower absorption and a greater risk of gastrointestinal side effects.
Magnesium L-threonate should be regarded as a source of threonate for cognitive enhancement and not a source of magnesium, because it doesn't have that much magnesium.
Aspartate, glycinate, gluconate, and lactate are all well absorbed forms.

Some people report magnesium glycinate as the least likely to loosen stools.

Topical magnesiums, such as magnesium oil and epsom salt baths, are not well studied. They do appear to increase magnesium status, and they may have the benefit of getting around the gut to avoid poor absorption and loose stools, but it is difficult to control the dose and we do not know how well they are absorbed. It is okay to use magnesium topically, but not at the expense of using oral magnesium supplements, which are much better studied.
To wrap up:

Magnesium is needed to support protein synthesis and energy use, which in turn supports EVERYTHING.

It maintains good energy levels, relaxation, and calmness.

It prevents twitching, spasming, muscle tension, cramping, and irregular heartbeats.

It helps build healthy bones and teeth, and prevents soft tissue calcification.

It helps with asthma, pain, glutamate sensitivity, noise-induced hearing loss, depression, PMS, pregnancy complications, diabetes, and migraines.

The best sources are legumes, nuts and seeds, with seafood, seaweed, and cheeses coming next.

Higher protein intakes and lower fiber intakes help with absorption.

Carnivore, keto, high-fat, AIP, and junk food are the dietary patterns where magnesium deficiency becomes risky.

Alcoholism, diabetes, sweating, antacids, certain prescription drugs, acute or chronic digestive problems, rare genetic disorders, and anything that increases urination can increase magnesium needs.

If you can't meet the RDA consistently, supplement with a low dose that will help you meet it.

If you have reasons to believe you are deficient, work up slowly from the RDA to find the dose that best seems to help.

Aspartate, glycinate, gluconate, and lactate are all well absorbed forms, and glycinate may have the lowest risk of gastrointestinal side effects. Avoid oxide, chloride, and sulfate.

Take it with food and spread it out across meals to avoid the risk of loosening stools, and cut back on the dose if you do loosen your stools.

Cut back on the dose and have your doctor measure your blood levels if you develop excessively low blood pressure, a faster or slower heart rate, twitches, or spasms.

Important ^^^! Looking at peoples bloodwork; their levels are always low.

Max

Originally Posted by maxmuscle1

Important ^^^! Looking at peoples bloodwork; their levels are always low.

Max

Yes most people are. Why? Anytime the body is stressed...exercise, emotional or mental stress, etc the body will dump Mg. Your Mg stays shows your bodies ability to adapt to stress essentially.

I always rec 5mg per lb BW.

Malate am and Mid day
Glycinate at night

The Two Faces of Iron

Like Janus, the ancient Roman god of beginnings, endings, and transitions, iron has two faces. Although many of the nutrients we have covered can be toxic in high amounts, iron stands out as one of only two where we are as likely to have too much as too little. (The other is selenium, which we will cover soon).

Iron-Deficiency Anemia

If you have too little iron, you may run into the following problems:

work feels too hard
you feel cold, fatigued, or weak
you get depressed
you get dizzy or lightheaded
you get pale skin
your heart skips a beat, beats irregularly, or flutters
you get muscle cramps
your digestion gets sluggish and your skin health deteriorates
These changes are a result of anemia, a condition where your blood loses its capacity to carry oxygen to your tissues. They are compounded by the fact that iron is needed to *use* that oxygen to burn food for energy.

Hypothyroidism

But iron, like iodine, is also needed to make thyroid hormone. Like iodine deficiency, iron deficiency can cause hypothyroidism. If iron deficiency hurts your thyroid, it could cause any of the symptoms listed in the last lesson on iodine. For example:

Hair and eyelashes falling out
Puffiness, especially in the face and under the eyes
Feeling cold, especially in the hands and feet
The full list can be found in the iodine lesson.

Iron Overload and Hemochromatosis

Too much iron can cause some of the same symptoms as too little:

fatigue
dizziness
depression
Too much iron can cause this major symptom of hypothyroidism:

hair falling out
However, iron overload has many symptoms that aren't so likely to happen in deficiency.

pain in the joints, chest, or abdomen
sexual and menstrual problems
high cholesterol
diabetes
The thing MOST different between the two is that too little iron can cause pale skin, whereas too much iron can cause the skin to become more colored, usually in the form of brown, bronze, or gray colors that increase in response to sunlight.

Too much iron, in its worst form, causes hemochromatosis. The way this condition is diagnosed, your liver or heart could suffer serious damage by the time you get help. However, iron accumulates for decades before it gets that bad, and in the meantime it could cause many of the symptoms listed above. Some people may have too much iron and may never get hemochromatosis. They may be at risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, fatigue, or poor sexual function. They probably are at increased risk for Alzheimer's and might even be at increased risk of Parkinson's.

Iron: Cause of and Defense Against Oxidative Stress

One of the areas where the two faces of iron really show themselves is oxidative stress. Remember that concept from the lessons on B vitamins and vitamins C and E? Oxidative stress is the wear and tear on our tissues that naturally occurs with age. It gets worse with exposure to toxins like cigarette smoke and alcohol, and in metabolic problems like diabetes.

On the one hand, iron is a critical part of your own dedicated system to combat oxidative stress. On the other, when the iron builds up to the point that much of it cannot be funneled into that system, the excess iron starts behaving like a little brat and making lots of trouble, and actually starts *causing* oxidative stress.

Oxidative stress may just cause your skin to wrinkle faster, your hair to gray more aggressively, and the bags under your eyes to sag deeper. But if oxidative stress is happening on the surface of your body, it's probably happening inside too. And inside it could worsen your risk of almost any chronic disease, hurt your metabolism, contributing to fatigue, and hurt your thyroid, contributing to an inflammatory condition known as Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

So, by now, it should be clear that we're not trying to have lots of iron or teensy tiny bits of iron. We're trying to hit that sweet spot, that middle ground.

Iron and Blood Loss

Although it is important to discuss where iron is found in food, the most important things for us to discuss are blood loss and genetics.

Let's start with blood.

90% of the iron in your body is contained in your red blood cells, the cells that carry oxygen in your blood. They are called "red" because iron takes on a red color when it carries oxygen. You may have noticed that your veins are blue, not red. That's because your arteries carry oxygen-rich blood from your heart to your other tissues, and lie deep beneath the surface of your skin where you can't see them. Your veins, on the other hand, carry blood back to the heart after its oxygen has been delivered. The iron isn't carrying oxygen at that point, and it takes on a blue color instead of red. If you get cut or have your blood drawn, the iron in your blood will immediately take up oxygen from the air and become red. That's why your veins always look blue but your blood always looks red.

Since 90% of your iron is in your red blood cells, the main way it leaves your body is through bleeding. Although any of us can lose blood when we get injured, most of the blood lost from us humans as a whole is lost during menstruation.

For this reason:

Women are much more likely than men to get anemia, whereas men are more likely to get hemochromatosis,
Women with heavier periods are more likely to get anemia than women with lighter periods.
Blood Loss in the Intestines, and From Exercise

Blood can also be lost in the intestines. This could be caused by a digestive problem, and could be bad enough to cause blood to appear in your stool, but it could also be subtle enough that a doctor would have to examine you to find it. Regular exercise also causes small amounts of blood to be lost in the intestines, and can contribute to anemia.

The Genetics of Iron Overload

On the flip side, the main reason we accumulate too much iron is because of genetics.

Most of us have a very elegant system to regulate how much iron we absorb from food. When we have too little, we absorb more. When we have too much, we absorb less. So *most* of us can become deficient if we lose more iron than we eat, because the most we can do is turn our iron absorption up to the max. If our absorption is maxed out and there is still more going out than coming in, we will steadily head toward deficiency over time. But most of us CAN'T get too much iron from food. If we have enough, we can shut absorption down to the minimum, and we can absorb little if any from food no matter how much we eat.

Unfortunately, there's a pretty sizable minority of us who have a defect in one of the key genes that is needed to run this system. Those of us with this defect tend to absorb lots of iron from food no matter how much we have.

Some scientists believe that the transition from a hunter-gatherer diet to a grain-based agricultural diet is what allowed this defect to flourish. Meat and green veggies are both very rich in iron, and the meat protein as well as vitamin C from the veggies and from fruit improves iron absorption. A heavily grain-based diet is relatively low in iron, and much lower than a hunter-gatherer diet in things that help iron absorption. Even if we have hemochromatosis genetics that cause us to leave our iron absorption turned up all the time, the iron in grains tends to be locked up in unabsorbable forms when the grains are consumed without meat, fruit, or veggies. A mostly-grain diet isn't a good diet, even if you have the defective genes, because it would be deficient in many nutrients. And yet, the defective genes wouldn't cause hemochromatosis on such a diet because there just isn't enough absorbable iron to cause a problem. By removing the mineral needed for the genes to cause a problem, the grain-based diet allowed the bad genes to flourish.

Now that we've returned to a higher-quality mixed diet that includes both iron and our other essential nutrients, those of us with the bad genes are stuck between a rock and a hard place:

The grain-based diet that allowed the genes to lose their harm itself has its own harm because it is deficient in so many nutrients.
Yet, eating a well rounded diet makes those genes cause hemochromatosis.
Phlebotomy and Blood Donation

The solution?

Blood loss!

Someone with diagnosed hemochromatosis can receive phlebotomy treatments, which involve removing blood and throwing it away. Someone with no diagnosis who wants to keep their iron levels under control to avoid developing a problem in the future can donate blood.

Sex, Race, and the Prevalence of Hemochromatosis Genetics

The gene that accounts for most hemochromatosis is known as the "HFE" gene. Overall, only about 0.5% of the population has the specific variation in this gene that puts them at strong risk of hemochromatosis. 3.5% have a variation that puts them at mild risk, and an additional 20% are at risk of accumulating too much iron without developing hemochromatosis. Mild defects in the HFE gene may not ever result in diagnosable hemochromatosis, but the excess iron accumulation they cause could increase the risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, Alzheimer's, and oxidative stress, the wear and tear that underlies faster aging and an increased risk of most chronic diseases.

Although women are at greater risk of anemia they still need to be concerned about their HFE genes:

Some women have lighter periods.
A woman might develop a lighter period or stop menstruating because of too much dieting and exercise, using birth control, or another reason.
All women eventually go through menopause.
A woman who stops menstruating may take many years to catch up her iron stores to a man with similar genetics, but if a woman has genes for hemochromatosis then she eventually will be at risk of accumulating too much iron at some point down the line.

It is mainly whites who are at risk of hemochromatosis, with only a slight risk in African Americans, hispanic Americans, and populations from the Indian subcontinent, and near zero risk in the rest of Asia, the Middle East, and in Africa. The risk of more moderate iron overload is most common among whites, less common among African Americans, hispanic Americans, and populations from the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent, and is rare in the rest of Asia and in Africa.

How Much Iron Do We Need?

Hemochromatosis and accumulation of too much iron is best seen as a genetic problem that should be treated with blood removal. On the other hand, diet is very relevant to iron deficiency: it occurs when our diet fails to support our needs, especially when those needs are increased as a result of blood loss.

So, how much do we need?

Before we look at the RDA, we need to understand how different components of our diet impact iron absorption.

Heme vs. Non-Heme Iron

Iron comes in two forms:

Heme iron makes up most of the iron in meat and egg yolk.
Non-heme iron makes up most of the iron in plant foods and dairy.
There are a few key differences:

Heme iron is more absorbable than non-heme iron.
How much non-heme iron we absorb is highly dependent on many factors that don't affect the absorption of heme iron.
What Impacts Iron Absorption?

The absorption of non-heme iron is increased by:

Vitamin C, from fresh fruits and vegetables.
Citric acid from citrus fruits, malic acid from many different fruits, and lactic acid from fermented foods.
Animal protein.
On the other hand, its absorption is decreased by:

Phytate, found in whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes.
Polyphenols, found in unrefined plant foods.
Vegetable protein.
You can reduce the phytate content of your diet by soaking, sprouting, souring, or fermenting your whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes. You can't do anything to reduce the polyphenol content of unrefined plant foods, but many polyphenol-rich foods also contain vitamin C, and citric, malic, or lactic acids, all of which enhance non-heme iron absorption. Since animal protein enhances non-heme iron absorption while plant protein inhibits it, eating meat along with iron-rich plant foods is a great way to increase the absorption of plant iron.

So there are two key principles:

Heme iron is both more absorbable than non-heme iron, and its absorption is less variable, making it more reliable.
You can maximize your absorption of non-heme iron by sprouting or fermenting your whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes, and by eating them with lots of animal protein, fresh fruits and vegetables, and perhaps some extra vitamin C.
Assumptions Behind the RDA

The RDA assumes that we absorb 16.8% of non-heme iron and 25% of heme iron, and that 90% of our iron is in the form of non-heme iron.

This doesn't account for the fact that the absorption of non-heme iron is highly variable and can be influenced by so many different factors.
Since the RDA assumes that our iron is 10% heme, it overestimates our needs on a meat-rich diet and underestimates our needs on a vegetarian or vegan diet.
We have to understand one more thing before we look at the RDA:

The RDA is meant to cover the needs of 97.5% of the population. To do that, they first estimate the average requirement, which covers 50% of the population, then they add an increased amount to cover the next 47.5%. This will help us understand why the RDA for adult women is so high.
The RDA

The RDA for adult men is 8 mg/d. For adult women it is 18 mg/d until the age of 50, after which it drops to the 8 mg/d required for men. It rises to 27 mg/d during pregnancy to account for the iron that the baby will accumulate, but then drops to 9 mg/d during lactation because a nursing mom loses some iron in her milk but doesn't get her period.

Why the Average Woman Doesn't Need to Meet the RDA

It's important to realize that most women do not need to meet the RDA for iron. According to the RDA, the *average* man needs 6 mg/d and the *average* woman needs 8 mg/d. The reason the RDA only goes from 6 mg/d for the average man to 8 mg/d to cover most men, yet jumps from 8 mg/d for the average woman to 18 mg/d to cover most women is that there is huge variation in how much menstrual fluid women lose. That means that for the average woman, the RDA for men is fine, but a considerable minority of women could become anemic on intakes below 18 mg/d.

The RDA for Infants, Children, and Adolescents

For infants less than 6 months old, an "adequate intake" (made when there isn't enough evidence for an RDA) was set at 0.27 mg/d on the basis of what infants typically consume in milk. For older infants, children, and adolescents, the RDA is based on the amount of iron needed to compensate for losses and to accumulate during growth. The RDA is 11 mg/d for infants 7-12 months old, It decreases to 7 mg/d during ages 1-3, rises to 10 mg/d during ages 4-8, and then drops to 8 mg/d for ages 9-13. At the age of 14, it assumes boys and girls are both in a growth spurt but that girls also start menstruating, so it increases to 11 mg/d for boys but to 15 mg/d for girls.

As we look at foods, remember that the average adult woman requires the same amount that covers most adult men (8 mg/d), whereas a much higher amount (18 mg/d) is needed to cover most women. We will look at foods in terms of what it would take to cover the needs of the average woman (the same as most men), and most women (higher). We would have to adjust downward for kids and upward for pregnant moms.

Iron in Foods: The Five Tiers

In the following lists, most foods are measured before cooking.

To match the assumptions behind the RDA, I assumed we need 30% less than the RDA when obtaining our iron from heme sources and 5% more than the RDA when obtaining it from non-heme sources.

TIER 1

Tier 1 foods supply more than 22 mg heme iron per 100 grams of (g) food. This covers the average woman's needs with just 13-25 g food (just under an ounce), and covers most women's needs with 30-60 g (about one to two ounces).

This tier only contains certain organ meats: the spleen of beef, lamb or pork; and the livers of duck, goose, or pork.

TIER 2

Tier 2 supplies 10.5-22 mg heme iron per 100 g, which covers the average woman in 26-50 g (about 1-2 ounces), and covers most women in 54-127 g (about 2-4.5 ounces).

Tier 2 only contains pork lung and veal spleen.

TIER 3

Tier 3 contains far more foods, and finally some that we actually want to eat!

Tier 3 foods provide 5.7-10.5 mg heme iron or 8.5-15.7 mg non-heme iron, which covers the average woman in 50-100 g (1.8-3.6 ounces) and covers most women in 120-225 g (4.3-8 ounces).

In other words, tier 3 foods cover most people's needs in one or two decent-sized servings per day.

Starting with animal foods, tier 3 contains some shellfish:

cuttlefish, oysters (eastern, farmed)

Some organ meats:

beef or lamb lung; livers of veal, chicken, turkey, beef, or lamb; lamb kidney; chicken or turkey giblets; chicken heart

It also includes the meat of beaver or bear and the breast meat of Canadian geese.

Tier 3 has the following legumes:

Soy, winged, moth, white, black turtle, and yardlong beans. Cowpeas.

Tier 3 also includes morel mushrooms; irishmoss seaweed; the seeds of sesame, pumpkin, and squash; and wheat or rice bran.

TIER 4

Tier 4 foods provide 2.8-5.7 mg heme iron or 4.3-8.5 mg non-heme iron, which covers the average woman in 100-200 g (about 3.5-7 ounces), and covers most women in 225-450 g (a half a pound to a pound).

One or two servings covers the average woman, but if you have to eat a pound of some of these foods they are taking up 20-30% of your die

Starting with animal foods, tier 4 contains some invertebrates:

octopus, whelk, oysters (wild eastern, or Pacific), blue mussels, snails, anchovies, abalone

It contains some common meats:

many cuts of beef

Most game meats:

emu, ostrich, squirrel, caribou, pigeon, quail, horse, deer, moose, rabbit, antelope, bison, goat, duck, goose

Many organs:

the hearts of pork, lamb, veal, beef, or turkey; the tongue of beef or pork; beef tripe

Moving on to plant foods, this tier contains many legumes:

Kidney, mungo, lima, yellow, pink, mung, fava, navy, great northern, hyacinth, pinto, black, cranberry, adzuki, and winged beans.

Lentils, pigeon peas, peas, peanuts, lupins, and chickepeas.

Tier 4 includes these nuts and seeds:

Hemp, chia, sunflower and flax seeds; cashews, pine nuts, and hazelnuts.

It includes these whole grains:

teff, amaranth, oat bran, dark rye, oats, quinoa, and whole wheat.

It also includes parsley, kanpyo and jute.

TIER 5

Tier 5 provides 1.3-2.8 mg heme iron or 1.9-4.2 mg non-heme iron per 100 g, which covers the average woman in 200-450 g (7 ounces to one pound) and covers most women with 450-1000 g (between one and 2.2 pounds).

There are a handful of animal foods that belong in this tier: mackerel, clams, frog legs, trout, fresh water bass, green turtle, white sucker fish, walleye pike, and sablefish.

Most iron-rich veggies belong to this tier:

Drumstick leaves, chanterelle mushrooms, Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, dandelion greens, kelp, spinach, grape leaves, beet greens, kimchi, dock, amaranth leaves, chrysanthemum leaves, Swiss chard, taro leaves, arrowroot, wakame seaweed, asparagus, broccoli raab, purslane, and turnip greens.

Tier 5 also includes many nuts and seeds:

pistachio nuts, butternuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, breadfruit seeds, lotus seeds, coconut, walnuts, pecans, beechuts, Brazil nuts, chestnuts, and hickorynuts.

It includes a number of whole grains:

buckwheat flour, millet flour, barley, whole cornmeal, sorghum, and wild rice.

It includes the following legumes:

French beans, broadbeans, baked beans, and carob flour.

And finally, it includes egg yolk (but not egg whites or whole eggs), Parmesan cheese, soft goat cheese, persimmons, and rowal.

Enriched Grains

Most refined grains are fortified with iron in the United States. Enriched corn flour makes it on to tier 3, while enriched rice and enriched wheat flour make it on to tier 4. The form of iron added to refined grains is not ideal. It may cause constipation, feed bad bugs in the gut, and contribute to oxidative stress that damages the intestines. Nevertheless, it does serve as a nutritional source of iron that prevents iron deficiency anemia. In fact, it is going to be better absorbed than the iron in whole grains because refined grains contain very little phytate, one of the major inhibitors of iron absorption. As with the B vitamins, removing refined grains is a positive health move but may contribute to iron deficiency if you don't manage the rest of your diet correctly.

Foods That Aren't Rich in Iron

Let's think through some of the foods that DIDN'T make the cut:

Sugar has no iron and is not fortified.

Fat has no iron.

While red meat and game meat is rich in iron (that's why red meat is red!), white meats are not. Only the organs of turkey and chicken, for example, made it on the list.

Egg whites contain no iron and actually inhibit iron absorption.

While a couple of cheeses made it on the list, in general dairy is a poor source of iron.

Although fruits provide vitamin C and citric and malic acids, all of which enhance the absorption of non-heme iron, most fruits do not have that much iron themselves.

While many veggies made it on the list, the most commonly consumed veggies did not.

Why Kale and Broccoli Didn't Make the Cut

The cutoff was 1.9 mg of non-heme iron per 100 g. Kale only has 1.6, and broccoli only has 0.73. While these foods obviously provide iron...

It would require 1.2 pounds of kale and 2.6 pounds of broccoli to meet the requirements of the average woman
It would require 2.6 pounds of kale and 5.8 pounds of broccoli to cover most women
It would require 4 pounds of kale and 8.7 pounds of broccoli to meet the RDA for pregnant women.
When relying on veggies for iron, it's important to emphasize the less commonly eaten veggies in tier 5. Generally speaking, legumes are the best plant sources of iron, with the common ones making it into tiers 3 and 4. Nuts, seeds, and whole grains are next in line.

What an Iron-Rich Diet Looks Like

If we put together a diet to maximize iron status, it would look like this:

Protein from red meat, organs, and shellfish.

Starch mainly from sprouted legumes or potatoes.

Calorie needs rounded off with soaked, sprouted, soured, or fermented nuts, seeds, and whole grains.

Several cups of veggies from the tier 5 list to round off the needs for other micronutrients.

A couple servings of fresh fruit.

The red meat and organs are especially important to provide riboflavin, which is needed to absorb and use iron. The shellfish and organs are especially important to provide copper, which is also needed to absorb and use iron. The soaking, sprouting, souring, or fermenting reduces phytate, making iron more absorbable. The fruits and veggies provide vitamin C and the various acids that increase iron absorption. The animal protein makes the iron from the plants more absorbable. The animal foods are a sort of "insurance policy." Since heme iron is more reliably absorbed than non-heme iron, the animal foods help compensate for some uncertainty about just how much you will absorb from the plant foods.

Dietary Patterns That Can Cause Iron Deficiency

So let's look at a few dietary patterns.

JUNK FOOD

Although enriched flour is fortified with iron, foods rich in sugar and fat are poor in iron. Milk is a valuable source of many nutrients, but not iron, so ice cream and milk shakes don't help. Junk food has to be restricted to a minor portion of the diet to make room for iron-rich foods.

EGG WHITE FOR PROTEIN

Most iron is in the yolk of an egg, and egg whites actually inhibit iron absorption. Using yolk-free egg white as protein displaces iron-rich meats. As a minor portion of the diet, egg whites are ok, but the rest of the diet should be managed properly to make up for them.

VEGAN/VEGETARIAN

Most iron in either diet will be non-heme. Lower animal protein and riboflavin intakes will lead to lower absorption of that iron. The best strategy for vegans and vegetarians is to sprout, soak, ferment, or sour all of their whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes, to consume them with supplemental vitamin C and lacto-fermented vegetables, and to emphasize legumes in their diet. Vegetarians should include egg yolks.

KETO

Well managed keto diets can be perfectly adequate in iron, but the emphasis on eating fat makes it more important to consume shellfish, organs, and red meat, and to select from the tier 5 veggies.

PALEO

Paleo diets have the potential to be very rich in iron, but because they eschew legumes, its is more important for them to emphasize shellfish, organs, and red meat, to use sprouted nuts and seeds, and to select from the tier 5 veggies.

Iron Supplements

If diet isn't enough to fix anemia, supplements may be warranted. There are a few available.

FERROUS SULFATE

This is the most common iron supplement used for anemia. It's cheap but has a high risk of side effects. It can cause constipation, feed bad gut microbes, and contribute to oxidative stress in the intestines. I recommend against using it.

HEME IRON

Heme iron (for example, in Proferrin ES) is the form of iron in meat and shellfish. This is more absorbable with a lower risk of side effects.

IRON PROTEIN-SUCCINYLATE

This is iron bound to compounds that prevent it from causing trouble in the gastrointestinal tract, but it's ability to prevent or treat anemia is not established.

IRON-SATURATED LACTOFERRIN

Lactoferrin is a protein in milk that shuttles iron through a baby's gastrointestinal tract, making sure it gets absorbed or fed to good microbes instead of bad ones. Lactoferrin on the market does not necessarily have any iron. There are two Italian products that have iron-saturated lactoferrin that is effective at treating anemia with a low-risk of side effects, Lattoglobina and Isoferine, but I do not know if they are available outside of Italy.

Iron and Inflammation

In addition to the importance of genetics, blood loss, riboflavin, and copper already mentioned, infection and inflammation can impact iron metabolism. Iron can feed the growth of some pathogens, so when your body is worried about an infection (either because there is one, or because there is an inflammatory condition that makes it look like there is one), it will bind up the iron and prevent you from using it.

Why You Shouldn't Manage Hemochromatosis or Iron Overload With Diet

You may be wondering, after our big discussion of iron in food: should people with too much iron avoid iron-rich foods? For people with severe hemochromatosis, this should be a tool in the kit to lower iron levels. However, it is always best to use blood donation or phlebotomy, not diet, as the first-line defense against iron overload. Why? Because iron-rich foods are rich in many other important nutrients. The copper and riboflavin found in liver, for example, helps you use iron properly and prevents it from doing damage. Liver is also an incredible source of other nutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin B12, and many other B vitamins. The same principle is true of legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and tier 5 veggies. Are we going to cut out our best sources of folate and vitamin C to manage our iron levels? In severe cases it might be needed. But if you can avoid managing excess iron with diet, you should.

Wrapping Up

To wrap up:

Feeling tired, fatigued, dizzy, or depressed, or your hair falling out, could indicate too little or too much iron.

Iron deficiency is more likely to make your skin pale, while iron overload is more likely to make it darker or discolored.

An irregular heart beat, muscle cramps, poor digestion, feeling cold, and hypothyroidism could all be signs of iron deficiency.

Pain in the joints, chest, or abdomen; sexual or menstrual problems; high cholesterol; and diabetes could all indicate iron overload.

Iron overload is mainly a genetic condition and should be treated primarily with phlebotomy or blood donation.

In its extreme state, iron overload leads to diagnosable hemochromatosis, but many people without this condition may still suffer many of the problems listed above for iron overload.

On average, men are more likely to get iron overload and women are more likely to get iron deficiency anemia because women lose blood through menstruation. However, men can become anemic and women can develop iron overload or even hemochromatosis.

Menstruating women have higher needs for iron than men, and those needs increase with heavier menstrual flow, lactation, and especially pregnancy.

Heme iron from meat and egg yolks is more absorbable and more reliably absorbed than non-heme iron from plant foods and dairy.

Whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes should be soaked, sprouted, fermented, or soured to free the iron.

Consuming plant foods with meat, vitamin C, citrus fruit, and lacto-fermented foods will help enhance iron absorption.

The best sources of iron are organ meats; shellfish; red meat; properly prepared legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains; and the specific vegetables listed in Tier 5.

The best supplement to use, if needed, is heme iron (as in Proferrin ES), or, if it is available to you, iron-saturated lactoferrin.

Keeping inflammation low and getting plenty of copper and riboflavin are necessary to use iron properly.

Whenever possible, it is best to avoid treating iron overload by restricting dietary iron, because that will lead to other nutrient deficiencies.

Do you ever feel sluggish? Does your hair fall out? Do your eyes get puffy? Do you feel like your brain doesn't fire up like it should?

Or, does your cholesterol run high? Do your sex hormones and libido run low?

If you're a woman, do you have period problems?

If any of these ring true, iodine may be for you.

Why We Need Iodine

The main thing we use iodine for is to make thyroid hormone. Thyroid hormone governs how much energy we spend. Spending energy doesn't just make us feel more energetic, it is also essential to making investments in our long-term health. If we don't have enough thyroid hormone, we become "hypothyroid" ("hypo" means "low").

Iodine Deficiency

Hypothyroidism doesn't look the same in everyone, but at least some of the following will occur:

Fatigue
Brain fog and poor memory
Hair and eyelashes falling out
Puffiness, especially in the face and under the eyes
Feeling cold, especially in the hands and feet
Constipation, gas, and bloating
Trouble digesting fatty foods
Pain, tenderness or stiffness in the muscles
Pain, stiffness, or swelling in the joints
Depression or mood problems
High cholesterol
Absent, irregular, or unusually heavy periods
Breast pain
Slowed heart rate
Increased vulnerability to infections
An enlarged thyroid gland, called a "goiter," which might look like a lump in your neck when large or just feel like a lump in your throat when small.
Hypothyroidism is especially concerning in pregnancy and the first few years of life, because it can cause permanent developmental effects.

Since thyroid hormone is needed for brain cells called neurons to form and connect with one another, even mild hypothyroidism causes a potentially lifelong decrease in IQ.
When severe, early hypothyroidism leads to "cretinism," involving mental retardation, poor growth, delayed sexual maturation, deafness, mutism, and stiffness or tightness of muscles.
Fibrocystic Breast Disease and Antimicrobial Effects

Apart from making thyroid hormone, iodine doesn't have any roles that we know of for certain, but here are two possible roles:

Iodine helps treat fibrocystic breast disease, which is a condition of non-cancerous lumps and discomfort in the breasts. Thyroid hormone also seems helpful, but the iodine itself might be needed to keep the breast tissue soft and smooth.
Iodine is used as a disinfectant to treat wounds or sterilize industrial equipment, and it might act the same way inside our bodies: having high levels circulating may protect us from dangerous microbes.
How Much Iodine Do We Need?

So, how much do we need?

The RDA for adults is based on scientific studies of how much iodine our thyroid gland uses each day and how much is lost in the urine. It's pegged at 150 micrograms per day (mcg/d) for both men and women. Pregnant women often develop goiter, or an increase in thyroid size that looks like it could turn into goiter. The RDA for pregnancy is based on the amount of iodine to stop the thyroid gland from changing size, and is increased to 220 mcg/d. The RDA for nursing mothers is based on the amount of iodine lost in milk, and is set at 290 mcg/d.

The RDA is set in different ways for children in different age groups, depending on the type of evidence that was available when it was made. In infants, it's based on the average consumption of iodine in infants that don't appear to be deficient. That puts it at 100 mcg/d in the first six months of life and 130 mcg/d in the next six. In children 1-8 years old, it's based on the amount of iodine they need to replace what they pee out each day. This puts it at 90 mcg/d. In boys and girls 9-13 years old, it's based on the amount of iodine needed to prevent goiter. That puts it at 120 mcg/d. In teenagers 14-18 years old, there was a study that looked at how much they peed out each day, but extrapolating down from adults based on bodyweight and then adjusting upward based on the fact that teenagers burn through more energy gave a higher estimate of their needs. The RDA uses the higher estimate in case teenagers need that much, and is set at 150 mcg/d, the same as the adult RDA.

Iodine In Food: Very Tricky

Iodine in food is a very tricky subject.

The iodine content of soil is highly variable. Flooding flushes iodine through soil to accumulate at the borders of the flooded area. Iodine evaporates and gets trapped by rain, but, if the rain consistently falls in a different area, the soil the iodine evaporates from can become deficient. The variation in soil content is so great that a potato grown in one part of the United States can have 100 times more iodine than a potato grown in another part.

Since iodine is so critical to development, all mammals put lots of iodine in their milk. Although cows and other milk animals may graze on iodine-deficient soils, most cows have iodine added to their feed. Commercial milk is therefore a reliable source of iodine. If you buy milk from a local small farm, especially one that pastures their animals, you should ask to make sure they supplement their animals with iodine before assuming the milk is a good source.

The one thing that never loses iodine is the ocean. Iodine evaporates from it, but rainfall always makes its way back to the ocean in one way or another. Nevertheless, iodine evaporates during the process of making sea salt, so natural sea salts do not contain meaningful amounts of iodine. Only commercial salt with iodine added to it after it is processed, called "iodized" salt, is a reliable source of iodine.

Seafoods are more consistent sources of iodine, although seaweed is much higher than fish and shellfish.

Overall, the most reliable sources of iodine are seafood, commercial milk, and iodized salt.

Commercial milk and yogurt have about 20 mcg, while cheese has about 40 mcg, per 100 grams of food.
Fish and shellfish have 20-100 mcg per 100 grams of food.
Morton's iodized salt provides the RDA for adults (150 mcg) in 3.3 grams, which is just over 1/2 tsp.
Kelp contains up to 3000 micrograms iodine per gram.
The most reliable way to get enough iodine is to include seaweed in your diet. Look at the amount of iodine listed on the package. Eat enough that you get, on average, 100% of the daily value, which is 150 mcg, per day. For pregnant women, nursing moms, or children, adjust according to the values given above.

If you use the seaweed as a vegetable that makes up a major part of a meal, or you eat packaged crispy seaweed snacks, you can eat them once a week and make sure to get seven times your daily requirement each week. If you want something to use daily, I recommend using a shaker of Maine Coast Sea Seasonings, which you can add to your food as if it were a spice.

Iodine Toxicity

Too much iodine can be a problem. Chronic iodine intakes over 18,000 mcg/d can cause goiter, just like iodine deficiency. Exposure to grams of iodine at once (one gram is one million micrograms) can cause acute poisoning, involving abdominal pain, fever, nausea, vomiting, and coma. Very rarely, someone may have an allergy to iodine, or react to iodine with acne, itching, and hives.

Some people argue that 200 mcg/d can worsen Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Grave's disease, two autoimmune conditions that involve the body attacking its own thyroid gland. If you have one of these conditions, have your doctor monitor your response to iodine closely.

The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, who makes the RDA, set the upper limit at 1000 mcg/d on the basis that studies have shown two weeks of intakes above this change blood markers of thyroid health. There is no clear evidence of any actual harm at this intake, though, and the average intake of iodine in Canada, where iodization of salt is mandatory, is higher than this. In fact, some traditional cultures that lived near coastlines and consumed lots of seaweed had intakes as high as 15,000 mcg/d, with no clear evidence of harm.

Rules of Thumb to Hit the Sweet Spot

The following are good rules of thumb:

Shoot for the RDA, but get as much as 1000 mcg/d if it makes you feel better.
If you use more than this, have your doctor monitor your thyroid health.
Don't go higher than 15,000 mcg/d unless you have a very strong reason to do so, and, if you do, have your doctor monitor your response very carefully.
The best reason to try amounts higher than 1000 mcg/d would be to treat fibrocystic breast disease, where about 5,000 mcg/d has been the most common dose that has been successfully used in scientific studies.

Iodine Antagonists

There is more to iodine than just getting enough in the diet though.

Compounds known as "goitrogens" can interfere with the uptake of iodine into the thyroid gland.

The list of these foods is rather long:

Soy, pearl millet, cruciferous vegetables (sulforaphane supplements, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, rutabaga, turnip, bok choy, arugula, horseradish, radish, wasabi, watercress, and maca); and foods that release cyanide ((cassava, aka tapioca, manioc, or yucca), lima beans, sorghum sprouts, flax, the seeds of apples and pears, and the leaves, fruit and seeds of black cherries, cherries, almonds, plums, peaches and apricots.)

In addition, fluoride, chlorine, and bromine all have the potential to interfere with iodine function. Fluoride is mainly found in toothpaste and fluoridated water. Chlorine is mainly found in swimming pools and cleaning products. Bromine is found in flame retardants, dyes, insecticides, furniture foam, gasoline, and the casings of electronics.

Unfortunately, we do not have good data on how much these things increase our need for iodine. Usually where there is strong evidence of harm, it is in populations that were deficient in iodine and often other nutrients such as vitamin B12 and protein. The studies on how much iodine we need have been conducted in people who eat vegetables and are exposed to modern environments, so the RDA might often be enough to deal with these antagonists.

My recommendation would be:

Don't go overboard with any of these things. For example, don't juice kale to get 10 times more than you could ever eat.
Otherwise don't worry too much and just focus on getting enough iodine.
If you have symptoms of iodine deficiency, consider increasing your iodine intake and reducing your exposure to iodine antagonists.
"Healthy" Habits That Hurt Your Iodine Status

We can see here a couple of ways someone could do something to be healthier, yet hurt their iodine status:

Go on a low-salt diet, getting rid of iodized salt, their major source of iodine.

Switch from iodized salt to natural sea salt, again eliminating their major source of iodine.

Take sulforophane supplements (or broccoli sprout extract) to promote detoxification, which is one of the goitrogens present in cruciferous veggies.

Juice high volumes of cruciferous veggies to get lots lots more than they could ever eat as solid food.

While none of these are intrinsically bad, crucifers should be eaten in moderation (1-3 servings a day), sulforaphane supplements should not be taken indefinitely, and decisions in any of these categories should be made with the acknowledgment that you may need to increase your intake of seaweed or other iodine-rich foods.

Iodine Supplements

Or, take a supplement. There are a few on the market.

IODINE FROM KELP

I would recommend this as a default, because it is natural and can easily provide your iodine requirement in a small amount.

LUGOL'S AND IODORAL

These are a combination of molecular iodine and potassium iodide. They are purer than kelp and can be used to achieve higher doses without worrying about contaminants such as bromine. Molecular iodine is the most common form used in the studies treating fibrocystic breast disease.

NASCENT IODINE

"Nascent iodine" is claimed to release energy when consumed and to provide high doses of iodine without hurting the thyroid. There is no legitimate science behind these claims and this probably acts similarly to the iodine added to salt.

POVIDONE-IODINE

Povidone is a synthetic molecule used as a carrier for iodine in topical antiseptic solutions. Although using this topically will provide you with iodine, it is impossible to properly regulate the dose, so it shouldn't be used for that purpose.

IODIDE SALTS

Salts such as potassium iodide are similar to what is added to salt, and make up a portion of Lugol's and Iodoral.

From the perspective of nourishing your iodine status, it makes little difference if you use molecular iodine, iodide salts, nascent iodine, food iodine (e.g. from kelp) or a combination like Iodoral and Lugol's. If you use high doses for a medical purpose, such as treatment of fibrocystic breast disease, I would use Lugol's or Iodoral.

Wrapping Up

To wrap up:

Fatigue, brain fog, high cholesterol, low sex hormones, period problems, thinning hair, puffiness, feeling cold, digestive troubles, depression or mood problems, getting sick often, and pain or discomfort in the muscles, joints, and breasts can all be signs of hypothyroidism.

Iodine deficiency causes hypothyroidism in anyone but during pregnancy and the first few years of life it can cause cretinism, with permanent developmental effects.

The most reliable sources of iodine are commercial milk, iodized salt, fish, shellfish, and seaweed.

The best natural way to get enough iodine is to use seaweed providing a daily average that meets the RDA.

There's a long list of goitrogenic foods, related supplements (sulforaphane), and fluoride, chlorine, and bromine that can all interfere with iodine function.

Restricting salt or switching from iodized salt to natural sea salt can hurt your iodine status.

Keep crucifers moderate (1-3 servings/day), don't use sulforaphane indefinitely, and be mindful that altering your salt might require making up for lost iodine.

If you feel like you might be iodine deficient, try increasing iodine from foods or supplements, or decreasing antagonists.

Use up to 1000 mcg/d. Talk to your doctor about using more.

5,000 mcg/d may be needed for fibrocystic breast disease, under medical supervision.

Don't go higher than 15,000 mcg/d without a strong reason, again under medical supervision.

If you have Grave's or Hashimoto's have your doctor carefully monitor your response to any change in iodine intake.