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RichardKennaway comments on Firewalling the Optimal from the Rational - Less Wrong
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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'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)
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.
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.
Their rep Jessica Arman replied:
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.