Do You Need Potassium in Electrolytes? What Your Sweat Actually Says

By Sebastian Madlangbayan, founder of Cleonse: the world's cleanest 3-ingredient organic electrolyte.

Short answer: Most people don't need potassium in their electrolyte drink. Sweat carries far more sodium than potassium, and sweat potassium stays low and steady while sodium swings widely from person to person. Sodium is the electrolyte to replace during exercise. Potassium is best covered by food: potatoes, beans, bananas, leafy greens and yogurt.

I get this question constantly, usually phrased like "why doesn't your drink have potassium?" It's a fair question. A lot of electrolyte brands lead with a big potassium number on the front of the pack, so a drink without one looks like it's missing something. So here's the honest version, including exactly where my own product lands.

What potassium actually does

Potassium is the main electrolyte inside your cells, while sodium is the main one outside them. Together they keep fluid where it belongs, carry nerve signals and let muscles contract, including your heart. You absolutely need potassium. That part isn't up for debate.

The real question is narrower: do you need to drink potassium during or after a workout to replace what you sweat out? That depends on how much you actually lose, and the answer surprises most people.

What's actually in your sweat

Sweat is mostly water with a pinch of salt. Researchers who measure sweat composition keep finding the same pattern: sodium and chloride make up the bulk, and potassium, magnesium and calcium show up in small amounts.

Electrolyte	Typical sweat range	Roughly, per liter of sweat
Sodium	10-90 mmol/L	~230-2,070 mg
Potassium	2-8 mmol/L	~80-310 mg
Calcium	0.2-2 mmol/L	~8-80 mg
Magnesium	0.02-0.4 mmol/L	~0.5-10 mg

Two things jump out. First, sodium losses can be several times higher than potassium losses in the same liter of sweat. Second, look at how wide the sodium range is. Some people sweat very little salt and some sweat a lot, which is why "salty sweaters" get crusty white lines on their hats. Potassium barely moves by comparison.

A real-world example: when researchers measured 17 nationally ranked swimmers during hard training sessions, their sweat averaged 43 mmol/L sodium and just 4 mmol/L potassium. That's roughly ten times more sodium than potassium, which is a pretty typical picture.

Why sodium is the priority during exercise

Because sodium is what you lose most of, and what varies most, it's the electrolyte that actually changes outcomes when you replace it. Sodium helps your body hold onto the fluid you drink instead of sending it straight to your bladder, and it keeps your drive to drink going.

Potassium hasn't shown the same benefit. Precision Hydration, summarizing the research on minor electrolytes, notes that adding potassium to a sports drink didn't improve fluid retention or rehydration beyond what sodium alone did. Their take is that most recreational athletes training under an hour a day don't need targeted potassium replacement if they eat a balanced diet. For very long efforts, two hours or more in the heat, replacing some potassium can make sense, and food covers that well.

If you want the deeper math on how the two minerals relate, I wrote a full breakdown of the sodium-to-potassium ratio in electrolyte drinks.

How much potassium you need in a day

Here's where potassium really matters: your daily diet, not your water bottle. According to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, the Adequate Intake for adults is:

• Men (19+): 3,400 mg per day
• Women (19+): 2,600 mg per day

Cleveland Clinic lists the same targets. The NIH also points out that people in the U.S. tend to eat less potassium than recommended. Average intake from food was about 3,016 mg for men and 2,320 mg for women in survey data, which is why potassium is considered a nutrient of public health concern. Harvard Health puts it simply: most people get far too much sodium and not enough potassium.

That sounds like it contradicts everything above, so let me square it. For the average person sitting at a desk eating processed food, sodium is too high and potassium is too low. For someone sweating through a long, hot workout, sodium losses become the immediate issue. Both are true. The fix for the first problem is eating more plants. The fix for the second is putting sodium in your bottle when you sweat a lot.

Food beats powder for potassium

The amounts in food are much bigger than anything an electrolyte drink can sensibly provide. Per the NIH:

Food	Potassium
Dried apricots, ½ cup	755 mg
Lentils, cooked, 1 cup	731 mg
Acorn squash, 1 cup	644 mg
Baked potato, 1 medium	610 mg
Orange juice, 1 cup	496 mg
Banana, 1 medium	422 mg

Cleveland Clinic adds beet greens (about 1,309 mg per cooked cup), plain nonfat yogurt (about 625 mg per 8 oz) and half an avocado (about 364 mg). A post-workout meal with a potato, some beans and a piece of fruit will out-deliver almost any electrolyte packet, and it comes with fiber and everything else food brings.

There's also a safety angle. Potassium is one mineral where more isn't automatically better. If you have kidney problems or take certain blood pressure medications, high-dose potassium supplements can be risky. Food sources are the safer default, and anyone in those groups should talk to their doctor before adding potassium products.

Where Cleonse lands, honestly

Here's the straight answer about my own drink. Cleonse has three ingredients: organic lemon or strawberry powder, organic cane sugar and French grey sea salt. We don't add potassium. Any potassium in the drink comes from the trace minerals that naturally occur in unrefined grey sea salt, and those are trace amounts. I'm not going to dress them up as a meaningful potassium dose, because they aren't.

What each 30g stick does give you is 500mg of sodium, the electrolyte your sweat actually runs low on, plus 26g of carbohydrate to help with absorption and fuel. You mix it into 16 oz of water. That's the whole formula, and you can see every number on the Cleonse facts page.

I built it this way on purpose. Adding potassium chloride or potassium citrate would have meant a fourth or fifth ingredient, and it wouldn't do much for most people that a banana doesn't do better. Keeping the formula to three ingredients is the whole point. If you want the full reasoning, read what makes an electrolyte "clean".

When added potassium might be worth it

I don't want to pretend potassium in a drink is never useful. A few situations where it can make sense:

• Very long endurance events. Think ultras, Ironman-distance racing or all-day hikes in the heat, where you're sweating for many hours and not eating normal meals.
• Illness with vomiting or diarrhea. That's a different situation where you lose potassium through the gut. Medical oral rehydration solutions are formulated with potassium for exactly this reason. If you're sick, see a doctor, and check out my explainer on oral rehydration solution.
• A diet that's genuinely low in produce. Even then, fixing the diet is the better long-term move.

For a normal workout, a tennis match, a run or a sweaty gym session, the bigger gap is almost always sodium. Pair a sodium-forward drink like Cleonse with real food and you've covered both.

How to read potassium on a label

When you're comparing electrolyte products, a few quick checks help:

• Look at sodium first. If sodium is low and potassium is high, the drink is built backwards for sweat replacement.
• Watch for combined "total electrolytes" numbers. Some brands add sodium, potassium and magnesium together into one big figure. Look at each mineral on its own.
• Check what the potassium comes with. High-potassium drinks often pair it with a long list of sweeteners, flavors and additives.

I go deeper on this in how to read an electrolyte label.

FAQ

Do electrolyte drinks need potassium?

Not for most workouts. Sweat contains far more sodium than potassium, and research hasn't shown that adding potassium improves rehydration beyond sodium alone. Most people get enough potassium from food when they eat produce, beans and dairy.

How much potassium do you lose in sweat?

Typically about 2-8 mmol/L, or roughly 80-310 mg per liter of sweat. Sodium is usually 10-90 mmol/L, or roughly 230-2,070 mg per liter, so sodium losses are much larger and vary more between people.

Does Cleonse contain potassium?

Cleonse has no added potassium. Its three ingredients are organic fruit powder, organic cane sugar and French grey sea salt. The sea salt naturally contains trace minerals, including trace potassium, but not in meaningful amounts. Each stick provides 500mg of sodium.

How much potassium should I eat per day?

The NIH sets the Adequate Intake at 3,400 mg per day for adult men and 2,600 mg per day for adult women. Foods like potatoes, lentils, dried apricots, bananas, leafy greens and yogurt are strong sources.

Can too much potassium be harmful?

From food, it's rarely a problem for healthy people. High-dose supplements can be risky for people with kidney problems or those on certain blood pressure medications. Talk to your doctor before adding potassium supplements.

Keep reading

• The sodium-to-potassium ratio, explained
• How to read an electrolyte label
• Why we use French grey sea salt

Editor's note: This article is for general education and isn't medical advice. Sources: NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, Potassium Fact Sheet for Health Professionals (Adequate Intakes, U.S. intake data, food values); Cleveland Clinic, "15 Potassium-Rich Foods to Add to Your Diet" (daily targets, food values); Harvard Health Publishing, "Potassium and sodium out of balance"; Gatorade Sports Science Institute, "Sweat Biomarkers for Sports Science Applications" (sweat sodium and chloride 10-90 mmol/L); Precision Hydration, "Do you need to replace the minor electrolytes in sweat?" (sweat ranges citing Baker & Wolfe, 2020; potassium and rehydration research); Maughan RJ et al., "Water and salt balance of well-trained swimmers in training," Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab, 2009 (PubMed 20175429). Milligram ranges are converted from mmol/L. Cleonse product facts are from our label.