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Morendil comments on Firewalling the Optimal from the Rational - Less Wrong
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I can't find mention of this on LW and the first few things Google turns up have to do with treating kidney stones, which doesn't seem relevant. What benefits do you get when this "works dramatically"?
About the same as drinking a cup of coffee - i.e., it works as a perker-upper, somehow. I'm not sure, since it doesn't do anything for me except possibly mitigate foot cramps.
Might be just placebo effect.
I don't have a reference at hand, but I recall hearing of a study where they gave the same sport drink to two groups of atletes and then measured their performances. Researchers told one group that they were testing a new, high quality super-duper sport drink, while they told the other group that it was a somewhat subpar product. Guess what happened to the performances of the two groups?
Potassium is a major one of the ions moved around in neuron action potential activation, and the RDA is waaay above what almost everyone gets (you would need to eat 12 bananas/day to meet it). The idea is something like that it helps neuron transmission work.
Is that like putting more petrol in your car to make it go faster?
Does "low sodium" table salt (mostly potassium chloride) give the same results (whatever they are) as potassium citrate?
I suppose it's the same kind of reasoning. I can't find any reference about potassium improving cognitive performances.
EDIT:
It's also worth noting that the RDA for potassium is being disputed, and that any source of naturally occurring potassium, including supplements, contains 0.012% of radioactive K40, which is the largest source of radioactivity in the human body.
It's pretty much unknown in the literature and only researched at all in athletic contexts, but there is a lot of overlap between physically enhancing interventions and mentally enhancing interventions. Whenever I'm lacking in creativity for possible interventions, I can always look at the World Doping Organization's list.
I would like to do some research on electrolytes with undergrads eventually, maybe next year. At this point I don't just supplement potassium but try and target a high water, high electrolyte, high trace mineral diet for cognitive enhancing purposes. I'm weary enough about the dangers of potassium to not trust most people enough to spoon it themselves out of bulk potassium citrate bags.
Apollinaris is my favorite off the shelf bottled water (check Whole Foods) and Trace Minerals Research makes my favorite electrolyte supplements, particularly Endure and 40,000 Volts, available on Amazon and often Amazon Prime.
What do you mean by high water diet? (I ask, because I'm concerned with my high water intake. Per day I usually drink about 2l tea, 1-2l coffee and 2-3l water. There were times when I drank 3l coke zero in addition to that. Problem is, if I don't drink that much, I get headaches and heart burn. And I love to drink, obviously.)
And you really should make a post about your thoughts on supplementation, diet, etc., if you have the time. I think a lot of folks here would be interested.
Potassium chloride works, but it tastes worse and the chlorine can do bad things if you take too much of it at once.
Where the extra citrate is mostly just good for you, though too much potassium is still harmful. It's also possible that potassium citrate is more mentally enhancing and potassium chloride is more physically enhancing.
If the effect just depends on the citrate group, then take citric acid, which naturally occurs, along with vitamins and dietary fiber, in most fruits and vegetables. This saves your money and prevents you from messing with your electrolyte balance. Vitamin and mineral overdose is almost impossible if you eat whole foods (other than the livers of certain species), but it's relatively easy if you mess around with supplements.
Anyway, until I see some evidence that citrate has cognitive enhancing properties, I'm going with the placebo effect hypothesis.
Well, if you're interested, I recently ordered a package of 00 gel caps and 1lb of potassium citrate powder. If it works for me as it seemed to work for Kevin, I can then do one of my double-blind experiments with dual n-back or something.
Sounds interesting.
A sample size of one would be too small for scientific significance, but it still seems worth trying.
A sample size of one is more than enough for internal validity, assuming I take enough data points to detect an effect. (I typically do 20+ pairs; the stronger the effect, the less you need.)
What n=1 threatens is any kind of external validity, that is, whether one would observe the effect or lack of effect in someone other than me. I may find that potassium is fantastic for me, but that tells me very little about whether potassium would help you or anyone else on this page.
Agree.
The company's website seems to indicate that it is actually potassium iodide (under nutritional facts). Are you aware of this? Do you know if it's accurate?
The product I received matches the Wikipedia article; the labeling on the bag is 'potassium citrate', and the nutritional breakdown per 100 grams matches what the Wikipedia article claims (eg. the bag claims 36.2g of potassium per 100g of powder while WP says "Pure potassium citrate contains 38.28% potassium.", which makes sense if the formula is C6H5K3O7 - as compared to KI). I haven't noticed any of the side-effects which are listed for potassium iodide despite taking what would by now have been a serious dose of potassium iodide. Finally, that description is identical to their informational page for potassium iodide crystals. So my guess is that it's some sort of copy and paste error, but definitely worth me emailing them to ask...
Oh, that's good then. Thanks.
I'd think it'd be more like like gold-plating the car's electrical system (imagine you could do that without disassembling the whole thing)
The first time I took supplemental potassium (50% US RDA in a lot of water), it was like a brain fog lifted that I never knew I had, and I felt profoundly energized in a way that made me feel exercise was reasonable and prudent, which resulted in me and the roommate that had just supplemented potassium going for an hour long walk at 2AM.
Experiences since then have not been quite so profound (which probably was so stark for me as I was likely fixing an acute deficiency), but I can still count on a moderately large amount of potassium to give me a solid, nearly side effect free performance boost for a few hours.
Thanks! Did you have any other indication at that time that you might have had a potassium deficiency, such as recent blood work?
(I had blood work done relatively recently, which turned up excessive levels of ferritin, but normal potassium at 4.2 compared to a 3.5-5.0 normal range.)
No, but I had been doing Bikram yoga on and off, and I think I wasn't keeping up the practice because I wasn't able to properly rehydrate myself.
I had a similar experience the first time I supplemented magnesium. Long lasting, non-jittery energy spike. I felt stronger (and empirically could in fact lift more weight), felt better, and was extremely happy. The effect decreased the next few times. After 4 doses (of 50% RDA, spread out over 2 weeks) I began to have adverse effects, including heart palpitation, weakness, and "sense of impending doom".
I wonder if there is a general physiological response to a sudden swing in electrolyte balance that causes the positive effect, rather than the removal of a deficiency.
Is there a typo/something I'm missing, or who the hell set the RDA that high?
How much is that in milligrams? Googling, I see different values for RDA. Also, I take it you were using some sort of bulk powder? (The gel caps all seem to be ridiculously small, like 99mg when the RDA is >3000mg!)
I think I've been going with 4.7 grams as RDA. And yes, bulk powder. Due to potential digestive upset, I typically don't administer more than 25% RDA now.
This question is for anyone who says they saw a benefit from supplementation, not just Kevin.
What was your diet like at the time? Were you taking a daily multivitamin?
Besides my dosage question: have you noticed any sleep benefits to supplementing potassium?
I think a general high water high electrolyte diet has benefited my sleep. I haven't noticed potassium immediately before bed decreasing sleep quality.
Hm, interesting.
Well, I've finished ~2 months of data. The Zeo sleep stats say that there is a major negative effect, so I'm going to chalk up potassium as a failed experiment for me:
I also replied on Reddit... but I'm wondering if co-administering magnesium would fix this. Or test if Concentrace (http://www.amazon.com/Trace-Minerals-Concentrace-Mineral-Drops-Glass/dp/B004AC07G6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1356074954&sr=8-2&keywords=concentrace), mostly my favorite commercial supplement and a highly bioabsorbable magnesium, improves sleep quality.
Replied there: http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/1578ly/does_potassium_hurt_anyone_elses_sleep/
I've just finished my followup experiment: http://www.gwern.net/Zeo#potassium-morning-use
I standardized a smaller dose, blinded consumption, and took it immediately upon awakening. The negative effect was much smaller (as expected) but there was still no apparent benefit.
I just got TwinLab capsules because I thought it might be easier to take capsules than get used to something that tastes bad. This might be true even if I take 10 or 20 of them a day, since at least they're smallish.
In any case, it's potassium aspartate. Any thoughts about apartate?
I suspect you're replying to the wrong comment.