Daily Potassium Needs Calculator

Potassium is an essential electrolyte that plays a critical role in muscle contraction, nerve signaling, fluid balance, and heart rhythm regulation. Inadequate potassium intake is linked to high blood pressure, kidney stones, and increased cardiovascular risk.

Recommended Daily Intake (AI: Adequate Intake):

Sweat:

Sweat carries less potassium than people assume: about 4 to 8 mmol a litre, which is roughly 150 to 300 mg. An athlete who sweats two litres in a session loses about what one banana holds. That is why the page does not raise your target for exercise, and why a sports drink is mostly about sodium.

Health Condition Adjustments:

For high blood pressure, the 2017 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guideline asks for 3,500 to 5,000 mg a day, preferably from food. The DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), the trial diet behind most of that evidence, delivered about 4,700 mg. The World Health Organization’s figure for all adults, at least 3,510 mg (90 mmol), sits at the bottom of the same range.
Kidney disease goes the other way. Impaired kidneys cannot excrete the surplus, so potassium is often restricted, and the right figure comes from your blood results rather than from any table.

Top Potassium-Rich Foods:

• Baked potato with skin: ~941 mg per medium potato
• White beans: ~1,004 mg per cup (cooked)
• Spinach (cooked): ~839 mg per cup
• Sweet potato: ~542 mg per medium potato
• Avocado: ~485 mg per half (about 100 g)
• Banana: ~422 mg per medium banana

To total what a day of these foods gives you, the Potassium Intake Calculator adds them up against this target.

Practical Tips:

Most adults do not consume enough potassium. Aim to include potassium-rich fruits, vegetables, legumes, and dairy products in every meal.
Cooking method matters more than people expect. Boiling leaches potassium into the water, and for kidney patients that is actually the point: double-boiling potatoes, discarding the water each time, can strip out roughly half the potassium. If you are trying to get more, bake or steam instead.
If you take a diuretic or a blood pressure medication, ask your doctor before changing anything. Potassium-sparing diuretics such as spironolactone, and ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors such as lisinopril, both push potassium up rather than down, and combining one of those with a deliberate high-potassium diet is how people end up hyperkalaemic.

One note on the numbers above. These are Adequate Intakes, not Recommended Dietary Allowances. The distinction matters: an AI is set from what healthy populations actually consume, because the evidence was not strong enough to establish an RDA. There is also no Tolerable Upper Intake Level for potassium from food, which is why this calculator shows no upper limit. That absence applies to food only. Supplements are a different matter: over-the-counter potassium tablets in the United States hold 99 mg or less, a ceiling that goes back to FDA (Food and Drug Administration) concern in the 1970s about concentrated potassium tablets injuring the gut.