Dear Caroline,

Too much or too little of anything is NOT good.

Potassium can kill you.

In many of your posts you are antagonistic about pharmaceuticals but think nothing wrong of supplements.

Personally, I think that anything one takes into their body, food, pharmaceuticals, or supplements need to be tailored to the needs of the individual.

Have someone with compromised kidneys eat a bunch of bananas (full of potassium) and see what happens. Possibly death.

Sodium is also a needed substance in the body. I agree that many consume too much salt but some people NEED it, and many do not.

To blindly supplement without knowing one's own lab values is reckless in my opinion. The same applies to prescription meds without knowing one's labs.

The "normal" ranges declared for many lab results do vary with time for many reasons but to discard the benefit of pharmaceuticals completely is not wise.

Again, it depends on the individual and the needs of their own bodies.

I am not a doctor but I sure would not want to have a systolic pressure of 177 no matter what any medical book, old or new, would suggest.