Higher potassium intake at dinner linked to fewer sleep disturbances – study
20 comments
·January 17, 2025desktopninja
Learnt from my grandmother to eat plenty bananas before bedtime. It helped with my asthma and swear too that it did wonders for my sleep.
Usually had it with a hot curry at dinner time or dessert (sliced bananas, cubed apples and evaparoted milk.)
ortusdux
I knew a guy that would eat a banana per beer. He would portion the bananas out beforehand, so we could tell he was serious when he showed up to a stag-do with two bunches!
TriangleEdge
Bananas aren't high in potassium. That's a myth. A banana has 450mg and a potato has 650mg.
IncreasePosts
Zuckerberg isn't rich. That's a myth. He had $200B and Elon has $450B.
Aurornis
Bananas have a decent amount of potassium per serving. A lot more than many foods. That’s not a myth.
The only myth is that bananas are a unique source of potassium. A lot of foods have similar or more amounts of potassium per serving or by weight.
LinuxBender
Adding to that bananas are high in sugar. 12 to 15 grams each
yabatopia
Fair enough, but I still prefer the banana. Just a little bit tastier than a raw potato.
spokaneplumb
Two bananas to a potato (I assume we’re talking something like a russet, not a little red potato?) sounds generous to the potato, if we’re talking volume equivalence.
A potato’s a meal. A banana’s a lightish snack.
rainclouds
Sadly I don’t think French fries have the same effect.
gweinberg
Potassium is a chemical element, frying it won't change the potassium level.
mgraczyk
Strangely the original study misstates the direction of the main finding, contradicting itself directly.
Is this a typo, or something more nefarious?
From the abstract:
Multiple regression analyses revealed that individuals with higher AIS scores had higher daily potassium intake
Multiple regression analysis indicated that individuals with a higher potassium intake had lower AIS scores.OutOfHere
That is true. From section 2.6 of the full-text:
> The sleep disturbances were assessed using the Athens Insomnia Scale [ 19], a self-administered psychometric questionnaire designed to evaluate sleep disorders, particularly insomnia [ 20 ]. It consists of eight items rated on a Likert scale ranging from 0 “no problem at all” to 3 “very severe” [ 20]. The total score ranges from 0 (absence of any sleep-related problems) to 24 (the most severe degree of insomnia). Severity is classified as normal for scores of 3 or less, subclinical insomnia for scores of greater than 3 but less than 6, and clinical insomnia for scores of 6 or more [19,21,22].
numpad0
IIUC, Na is used like signaling medium in body and alkaline metals that isn't Na tends to reduce blood pressure, slow heartbeat and neural activity. With that in mind, it sounds reasonable that those tendency could lead to slightly deeper sleep. Or is there something else to it?
null
brcmthrowaway
My main problem is waking up too early. Any silver bullet for that?
OutOfHere
choices = [
1/4 tsp of potassium bicarbonate powder in 8 oz of water,
200 mg L-theanine,
30 minutes of a podcast,
while choices and not sleep:
choice = choices.pop(0)
take_choice(choice)
wait(25 * 60)lazyeye
I haven't heard of potassium before.
FullGarden_S
I take potassium capsules frequently and magnesium capsules whenever I smoke, which is occasionally. Both of them were effective and help me with reducing anxiety and relieving stress.
I wouldn't read too much into the title, the closing parts of the article give a much more balanced take on the whole issue. This study disagrees with some previous work and it's unclear which result makes sense and why. As usual, more research is needed, and while a catchy title is nice, this isn't anything to change your dietary habits by,