Last night I was in the poster hall and talked to folks about my poster. Thanks to everyone who stopped by!
My poster talk
When folks stopped by, this was what I was telling them about my poster:
Background
My goal with this work was to figure out if all potassium additives are “bad” for my patients. I think of it as akin to how we teach patients to read ingredients lists for “phos”. Can I use that same technique and teach my patient to read ingredients lists for “potassium.”
An important background point to this, is that there are over 20 different potassium based additives approved for use in Canada and the USA.
Main Findings
The most important take-away from this poster, is that based on the information we have:
- Potassium sorbate and Acesulfame potassium are not additives of concern. The only caveat to this would be if someone is consuming a lot of bread products that contain potassium sorbate. But in most other cases potassium sorbate is likely OK.
- When I am teaching label reading to patients, I tell them to focus solely on Potassium Chloride, Phosphate, Citrate and Lactate.
- We don’t know enough about the other additives to know if they are OK or problematic.
