Preliminary evidence of effects of potassium chloride on a metabolomic path to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Low potassium intake can affect cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and cardiometabolic risk factors. OBJECTIVE: We hypothesize that potassium chloride (KCl) supplementation can improve cardiovascular risk metabolomic profile. METHODS: In this secondary analysis of a pilot randomized clinical trial (RCT) of 26 participants with prediabetes randomized to KCl or placebo, we performed targeted mass-spectrometry-based metabolomic profiling on baseline and 12-week (end-of-study) plasma samples. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the many correlated metabolites into fewer, independent factors that retain most of the information in the original data. RESULTS: Those taking KCl had significant reductions (corresponding to lower cardiovascular risk) in the branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) factor (P = 0.004) and in valine levels (P = 0.02); and non-significant reductions in short-chain acylcarnitines (SCA) factor (P = 0.11). CONCLUSIONS: KCl supplementation may improve circulating BCAA levels, which may reflect improvements in overall cardiometabolic risk profile. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRY Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT02236598; https//clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02236598.