Potassium chloride supplements

The treatment of thallium poisoning is rather ingenious. It takes three forms diuretics eliminate thallium through increased urine production Prussian blue dye traps thallium excreted into the gut, preventing its reabsorption and potassium chloride supplements displace the thallium that has already been absorbed into the tissues. These measures allowed the unfortunate child from Qatar to make a complete recovery. 

McMahon EG, Ryan JR, Akdamar K, Ertan A. LFpper gastrointestinal lesions after potassium chloride supplements a controlled chnical trial. Lancet 1982 2(8307) 1059-61. 

Administer potassium chloride supplements (Table 10.1) orally with juice or water to reduce gastric irritation (onset takes 30 minutes). 

Administer potassium chloride supplements (Table 10-1) orally (may take 30 minutes for onset) or IV. Use a central IV Mne for rapid infusion in critical conditions. Take with at least a half a glass of fluid (juice or water) because potassium is extremely irritating to the gastric and intestinal mucosa. 

Concentrated electrolytes (potassium chloride, potassium phosphate, and sodium chloride greater than 0.9%) should not be stored in patient care areas as a patient safety measure. Serum magnesium levels do not correlate well with total body magnesium stores. For this reason, magnesium supplementation is often given empirically to critically ill patients. 

Whenever possible, potassium supplementation should be administered by mouth. Of the available salts, potassium chloride is most commonly used because it is the most effective for common causes of potassium depletion. 

For example, sodium ion is the principal cation of the extracellular fluid of the mammalian body, comprising, as the chloride and bicarbonate, more than 90% of the total solute in that fluid. Ingestion of sodium chloride solutions is used to replace salt lost by excessive perspiration. More sophisticated preparations have been proposed for this purpose one such preparation5 comprises mainly sodium chloride, supplemented with smaller amounts of potassium and phosphate ions to approximate the average composition of sweat in a sweetened glucose solution. 

All these faults can be largely eliminated by chlorinating ferrosilicon in a medium of melted salts. In this case, chlorination should be started in a melt of sodium chloride (or an equimolar mixture of sodium and potassium chlorides). Then the iron chlorides which form alongside with SiCl4, are held in the melt in the form of complexes with chlorides of alkaline metals (NaFeCLt and KFeCl4). After the concentration of Fe in the melt reaches 45-50% (equivalent to FeCfi), the new portions of ferrosilicon are supplemented with a corresponding quantity of sodium chloride (or an equimolar... 

The Committee on Food Chemicals Codex notes that this method may be used only until the First Supplement to this edition is released in 2004. At that time, the committee will set a lead limit as low as practicable for potassium chloride. Manufacturers are encouraged to develop and validate methods for use in industrial settings and that are sensitive enough to detect lead in the amounts typically present in potassium chloride, and to propose such methods to the committee in a timely manner. 

The NaCl produced in the solution is collected and used again by re-cycling Except for the preparation of the electrolyte in the beginning, the supplement of sodium chloride is almost unnecessary only potassium chloride is required. The solution is electrolysed using graphite anodes and steel plate cathodes as in the case of (a) and adding a small amount of potassium bichromate. The pH value is adjusted to about 6.5 6.8, the bath voltage 3 1 3 5 and the temperature about O O C. When potassium chloride is added to the electrolyte, the potassium chlorate crystallizes out The crystals are recrystallized, dried, crushed to powder and sieved to requirements. This process has one more double decomposition step than (a), but needs less electric power than (a). 

Oral potassium chloride is used to prevent or correct potassium depletion due to diuretic use or other conditions. Potassium chloride is available not only for medicinal purposes but also as a food supplement and salt substitute. 

Hyperkalemia is a risk of potassium chloride administration whether medicinal or not. The wide availability of potassium salts can contribute to accidental fatal hyperkalemia. Hyperkalemia has been reported after ingestion of salt substitutes (1,2) and over-the-counter potassium supplements (3). 

Potassium chloride is also used widely in the food industry as a dietary supplement, pH control agent, stabilizer, thickener, and gelling agent. It can also be used in infant formulations. 

Hypokalemia is treated with i.v. potassium chloride solution. The rate of administration is more important than the amoimt. Normally the rate should not exceed 0.5mEq/kg/h and should never exceed 1 mEq/kg/h (Schaer 1999). The addition of 40mEq/l potassium chloride to crystalloid fluids is safe at infusion rates of up to lOml/kg/h (51/h for a 500 kg horse). This amount is usually only required in severe hypokalemia (<2.7mEq/l) and smaller disturbances can often be treated successfully with 20mEq/l. If hypokalemia does not respond to potassium chloride admirustration, magnesium should be supplemented (Hamill-Ruth McGory 1996). 

A 36-year-old patient started taking a combination of herbal products including Echinacea, and 2 weeks later she presented with generalized muscle weakness that limited her ambulation and ability to use her hands. She was found to have distal renal tubular acidosis and was extremely hypokalemic (K+ of 1.3). Over 4 days she received 1200 mEq of sodium bicarbonate and 400 mEq of potassium chloride along with other electrolyte supplements to correct the imbalances. After her serum electrolytes were corrected, her muscle weakness improved rapidly. She was diagnosed and treated for Sjogren s syndrome and her condition rapidly improved. The researchers suggested that her use of the immunostimulant Echinacea could have contributed to the activation of her autoimmune disease, which ultimately caused her severe metabolic disturbances. Because she had remained symptom free for more than 3 years, the authors concluded that, after review, her disease was relatively mild and was exacerbated by Echinacea (34). 

Potassium chloride is the preferred potassium supplement for the most common causes of hypokalemia. 

Whenever possible, potassium supplementation should be administered by mouth. Three salts are available for oral potassium supplementation chloride, phosphate, and bicarbonate. Potassium phosphate should be used when patients are both hypokalemic and hypophosphatemic potassium bicarbonate is most commonly used when potassium depletion occurs in the setting of metabolic acidosis. Potassium chloride, however, is the primary salt form used because it is the most effective treatment for the common causes of potassium depletion (i.e., diuretic-induced and diarrhea-induced hypokalemia). Because diarrhea and diuretics such as hydrochlorothiazide and furosemide promote net potassium and chloride losses, supplementation with potassium chloride repletes both electrolytes. Potassium chloride can be administered in either tablet or liquid formulations (Table 50-4). The liquid forms are generally less expensive however,... 

Supplements. Supplements of potassium in medicine are most widely used in conjunction with the most powerful classes of diuretics, which rid the body of sodium and water, but have the side effect of also causing potassium loss in urine. Potassium supplements are available as a number of different salts, including potassium chloride, citrate, gluconate, bicarbonate, aspartate, and orotate. °... 

A retrospective analysis of 14 patients without renal impairment taking potassium supplements and either furosemide or hydrochlorothiazide, found that the levels of serum potassium, during a 4-year period, had not significantly increased after the addition of captopril. Another study in 6 healthy subjects found that intravenous potassium chloride caused virtually the same rise in serum potassium levels in those given enalapril as in those given a placebo. ... 

Potassium supplements are given to patients receiving those diuretics known as the potassium-wasting diuretics, which cause loss of potassium in the urine. Orally administered potassium is frequently given in a slow-release form, enteric-coated, since potassium chloride is corrosive to the epithelial tissues of the stomach. Potassium is absorbed throughout the gastrointestinal tract and is transferred readily across epithelial membranes [10]. 

In unprocessed foods, potassium occurs mainly in association with bicarbonate-generating precursors such as citrate and, to a lesser extent, with phosphate. In processed foods to which potassium is added and in supplements, the form of potassium is potassium chloride. In healthy people, approximately 85% of dietary potassium is absorbed. Most potassium (approximately 77-90%) is excreted in urine, whereas the remainder is excreted mainly in feces, with much smaller amounts excreted in sweat. Because most potassium that is filtered by the glomerulus of the kidney is reabsorbed (70-80%) in the proximal tubule, only a small amount of filtered potassium reaches the distal tubule. The majority of potassium in urine results from secretion of potassium into the cortical collecting duct, a secretion regulated by a number of factors including the hormone aldosterone. An elevated plasma concentration of potassium stimulates the adrenal cortex to release aldosterone, which in turn increases secretion of potassium in the cortical collecting duct. 

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