potassium level may be the disparity in races

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Potassium Levels Possible Key to Racial Disparity in Type 2 Diabetes

Lower potassium levels in the blood may help explain why African-Americans

are twice as likely to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes as whites....

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The findings, if confirmed, suggest that part of diabetes prevention may

someday prove as easy as taking a cheap potassium supplement.

Hsin-Chieh " " Yeh, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medicine at the

s Hopkins University School of Medicine and an author of the study

states that, " This research doesn't mean people should run out and start

taking potassium supplements. " But we now know lower serum potassium is an

independent risk factor for diabetes and that African-Americans have, on

average, lower potassium levels than whites. What remains to be seen is if

increasing potassium levels through diet or supplementation can prevent the

most common form of diabetes. "

Yeh and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 12,000 participants in

the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC), information collected

from 1987 and 1996. The more than 2,000 African-Americans in the study had

lower average serum potassium levels than the more than 9,000 whites in the

study, and they were twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes. The

incidence of diabetes among study participants went up as potassium levels

went down.

Many factors are thought to contribute to the greater prevalence of diabetes

in African-Americans, including differences in socioeconomic status, diet,

obesity and genetics. But researchers say these do not account for the

entire disparity.

Serum potassium, Yeh and her colleagues found, appears to be a novel risk

factor for the disorder that may explain some of the racial disparity in

diabetes risk, and one that may be as important as obesity. A recent study

found that the racial disparity in diabetes prevalence has widened the most

in normal-weight and overweight people rather than the obese, suggesting

that additional factors other than weight contribute to the risk.

Yeh notes that low potassium levels have been linked in healthy people to

higher insulin and higher glucose levels, two hallmarks of diabetes.

Previous studies have shown that African-Americans get less potassium in

their diets than whites in the United States; on average just half of the

government recommended 4,700 milligrams per day. Potassium comes from many

sources such as bananas, melons, lentils and yogurt.

Determining whether a patient is potassium deficient would be simple to do,

Yeh says, as part of a basic set of metabolic tests routinely ordered by

primary care doctors. She would also like to see clinical trials developed

to examine whether manipulating potassium levels -- either through diet

changes or the addition of supplements -- would reduce diabetes risk for

some groups.

" That is to be determined, " Yeh says. But " if this works, " she adds, " this

would be a very low-cost, practical way to prevent diabetes. "

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March 2011

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