How Do High Potassium Levels Affect Heart? Potassium is a mineral that plays an important role in the body, which carefully regulates potassium levels due

to the importance of this mineral for the function of all cells, including muscle cells within the heart. Having too

much potassium in your blood can disrupt the heart's ability to pump properly.

Potassium as Electrolyte One of the reasons why potassium is so important is because it carries a positive charge when it is dissolved in

water-based substances, such as blood. Cells within the body use small electrical charges to function normally.

By modulating their potassium levels, cells can change their electrical charges. Most of the potassium within

the body is kept in cells, but alterations in blood levels in potassium can have a significant effect on the body.

Potassium and Cardiac Function The contraction of the heart involves electrical currents. The contraction of cardiac muscle fibers requires

calcium. The release of calcium from internal stores is controlled by changes in the electrical charge within the

cell. Because potassium plays a pivotal role in maintaining this electrical charge, fluctuations in potassium

levels can disrupt calcium release within the heart, disrupting the timing and rhythm of cardiac muscle

contractions needed for the heart to pump blood efficiently throughout the body.

Calcium and Cardiac Function Calcium is elemental in building bones, but this mineral also has a connection to the heart beat. The cardiac

muscle keeps the heart pumping at an average rate of 70 beats per minute. The heart must contract and relax

more than 100,000 times a day. The mineral calcium is critical in triggering timely and strong enough

contractions in the cardiac muscle to circulate blood throughout the body.

Calcium and Cardiac Muscle The heart is formed from specialized muscle cells called cardiomyocytes that work automatically without

skipping a single beat. Like other muscles, the cardiac muscles require calcium to contract and squeeze blood

out of the heart and into the arteries. Calcium flows into the muscle cells through tiny channels and works as a

switch that allows each heart muscle fiber to slide past each other and shorten to contract. At the end of each

contraction, calcium flows out of the channels to allow the muscles to relax and lengthen again.