Minirant: In Japan they have vegetable juice (tomato and a mix like V-8) that has no salt added–unlike Low Sodium V-8, which is loaded with potassium chloride. To the makers of the latter product I say, “Morons.”
But here’s the question: Is loading a product with KCl safe? IIRC, it is illegal to make an OTC supplement with more than 99 mg of potassium in it, since someone downing a big dose could easily deep-six him- or herself.
But it is quite easy to get a lot more than the recommended daily allowance of potassium from this juice. If you drink the 12 OZ chugger, you’ll get 820 mg, which is 23% of the 3,500 mg FDA daily recommended level, and over 8 times more than the legal limit on an OTC pill. It is easy to imgine someone gulping down the big jug of the stuff (easy to imagine as I have gone through large amounts of vegetable juice in a day, and they have gone through me), thereby getting 100% or more of the recommended daily allowance of K.
Now, before you object that no one is actually going to get killed through drinking thus, think again. My mom is currently on a low-potassium diet. At one point the doctors thought she was really in danger. Consider also that Low Sodium V-8 has no kind of warning label on it that lets people know that much of the mineral lurks within.
Couldn’t this combo of high potassium and no warning label cause someone problems? I think it could. Tell me your thoughts.
If you’ve got a healthy pair of kidneys it’s actually rather difficult to OD on oral potassium, especially when in food. Not impossible, but you’ve got to try really hard.
Qad is correct as always. But, there is a fairly common circumstance among the over 50 age group that mandates an important caveat.
Many people nowadays are on drugs called angiotensin enzyme converters (eg. Vasotec or enalapril, Altace or ramipril, etc.), angiotensin-II receptor blockers (eg. Avapro or irbesartan, Cozaar or losartan, etc.), Aldactone or sprinolactone, beta-blockers (eg. Lopressor or metoprolol, Tenormin or atenolol, etc.) and often take them in combination together.
A person’s ability to excrete a large load of orally ingested potassium can be severely restricted when taking those drugs, especially if they also have diabetes (and, if they have kidney problems, look out!).
Although uncommon in patients with normal kidneys, as Qad correctly pointed out above, high blood potassium levels can still occur strictly on the basis of excess potassium ingestion for people taking the above drugs.