1. By Nathan Campbell

2. A mineral is a naturally occurring inorganic solid with a definite chemical composition and an ordered atomic arrangement.

3. Potassium is an important mineral that helps your body in many ways. It is an off-white mineral, harder than glass, with a white streak. It is also an electrolyte, a conductor of electricity inside the body that helps trigger and sustain the hearts electrical impulses.

4. When I started researching I realized that potassium is a very useful body material that helps in a lot of ways. Potassium helps conduct nerve impulses, helps with muscle contraction, and helps regulate the flow of nutrients in and out of your cells. Another one of its jobs is to keep your blood pressure normal, mostly by countering the effects of sodium.

5. Potassium helps the body in many ways but I wanted to focus on how it helps the heart with heart disease. Potassium’s main job is helping your heart beat at a normal rhythm A large drop in your body’s potassium level can cause your heartbeat to slow or even stop. Too much potassium can cause hyperkalemia and too little can cause hypokalemia.

6. While potassium has many positive effects it still has some negative. Hypokalemia: Hypokalemia is the condition when the concentration of potassium in the blood is low. This can be caused by diarrhea or vomiting, kidney disease, or eating disorders. Symptoms include abnormal heart rhythms, feeling of skipped heart beats, and tingling or numbness. This disease can be fatal. One of the main uses of potassium is treating this disease

7. Hyperkalemia: Hyperkalemia is the condition when the concentration of potassium in the blood is too high. This can cause abnormal heart rhythms, cardiac arrest, and rarely Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis when hyperkalemia stops the electrical activity of a muscle resulting in paralysis on the muscle. Causes include kidney failure when the kidneys can’t get rid of the excess potassium or just have high levels of potassium in blood.

8. You can prevent hypokalemia and hyperkalemia by having a diet rich in potassium. Drinking alcohol too much can cause kidney disease which can possibly cause hyperkalemia. Potassium can be found in all meats and some fish. Bananas and strawberries are great sources of potassium. In general adults should get 4,700 grams of potassium a day while being limited to only 1,500 grams of sodium.

9. In conclusion, the effects of potassium on the heart can be both beneficial and if used incorrectly, negative.