Under Appreciated Issues in the Treatment of Chronic Illness – Low Grade, Chronic Acidosis Combined with Potassium Deficiency – Part V – Potassium Metabolism and Clinical Application of Potassium Supplements

INTRODUCTION Over the last few months I have devoted the Moss Nutrition Report to my cause of increasing awareness in the clinical nutrition community that, even with the new treatment vistas that have been opened to us through genomics, new generation functional medicine tests and supplements, and exciting dietary protocols such as intermittent fasting and …

Under Appreciated Issues in the Treatment of Chronic Illness – Low Grade, Chronic Acidosis Combined with Potassium Deficiency – Part IV – Why We Need to Pay More Attention to Diet Induced Acidosis

INTRODUCTION As those of you who have been following this series since I began it in May of 2018, there was a somewhat lengthy period of time between part III and part IV, which I am writing now for the July 2019 Moss Nutrition Report.  Why did I take a break from this series for …

Acid/Alkaline Balance and Muscle/Protein Optimization – Is There a Relationship Between the Two?

In the previous five newsletters three have been about the health risk of low grade, chronic metabolic acidosis, primarily related to a low potassium/high acid-based diet and two have been about the importance of muscle and dietary protein optimization.  While, in these newsletters, I was writing about the subjects in isolation, is there, in fact, …

Under Appreciated Issues in the Treatment of Chronic Illness – Low Grade, Chronic Acidosis Combined with Potassium Deficiency – Part III – Potassium, Metabolic Acidosis, and Hypertension

In part I and part II of this series I primarily focused on the work of Anthony Sebastian and Lynda Frassetto concerning the health implications of low potassium intake and metabolic acidosis as reported in the book chapter "An evolutionary perspective on the acid-base effects of diet" (1).  Of the many fascinating and clinically relevant …

Under Appreciated Issues in the Treatment of Chronic Illness – Low Grade, Chronic Acidosis Combined with Potassium Deficiency – Part II – Origins and Impact of Metabolic Acidosis

"The happiness of most people we know is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things." - Ernest Dimnet, French priest, lecturer and author (1866-1954) In part I of this series (The May 2018 Moss Nutrition Report), I began my review of the excellent book chapter by …

Potassium and Sudden Cardiac Death – Update

In this newsletter I had every intention of continuing my review of the literature on low grade, chronic metabolic acidosis and its relationship to potassium deficiency.  While I will continue this series of newsletters in the near future, I now feel compelled to present a review on the research on potassium and sudden cardiac death …

Under Appreciated Issues in the Treatment of Chronic Illness – Low Grade, Chronic Acidosis Combined with Potassium Deficiency-Part I

At the beginning of 2018 I started to think about all of the supplements and metabolic imbalances I have written and talked about over the years that, despite overwhelming research, clinical, and anecdotal evidence about their major importance in terms of improving quality of life in chronically ill patients, continue to be almost completely ignored by the public, the vast majority of nutritional practitioners, and, much to my surprise and chagrin, all too many in the functional medicine community. With these thoughts in mind, I wrote about protein and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) deficiencies and the value of supplementation of each earlier this year, discussing research I had found since my previous publications on these subjects. Now I would like to write again about two different but tightly integrated subjects about which I have written extensively over the years but, still to my surprise and chagrin, continue to attract much less attention than what I feel they deserve.

Some Thoughts on Sudden Cardiac Death – Part VI

Part V of this series ended with a promise that I would be discussing research on the important and intimate relationship between potassium and magnesium metabolism.  In particular, because magnesium plays a major role in the transport of potassium into the intracellular compartment, magnesium deficiency can largely negate the potentially positive effects of any dietary …

Some Thoughts on Sudden Cardiac Death – Part V

 Part IV of this series ended in the midst of my discussion of clinical conditions that are most associated with hypokalemia.  I will continue this discussion shortly.  However, after writing part IV, an interesting question was posed by a reader in response to the discussion on foods that are most likely, when consumed in excess, …

Some Thoughts on Sudden Cardiac Death – Part IV

As you have seen, the central theme in this series has been the under appreciation of sudden depletions of potassium, usually in the serum, and catastrophic illness, specifically heart attack.  However, I ended part III with another equally important discussion.  If potassium depletion is having such a large impact on acute cardiovascular disorders, why is …