Cramp!

[Mike T]

I don't know if my experience is of any relevance, but last spring/early summer I suffered from cramps most nights. I was drinking plenty and although training hard, this was nothing I'd not done before. I mentioned my peoblem to a pharmacist and he suggested two unrelated reasons.
(1) My diet was very, very low in sodium as a result of me eating fresh food and especially loads of fruit. He also thought that the number of bananas I ate would be causing the little sodium I ate to be "exchanged" with the potassium in the bananas.
(2) I was on medication and one of the side effects was to reduce sodium uptake.
I therefore started adding salt at his suggestion (not much only about 1g/day) and wonder of wonders the cramps disappeared.

Very interesting - drug induced night cramps are of course very different from running but I can see where you are coming from. I imagine the medication increased salt excretion. If it was for blood pressure having extra salt may have partly negated the benefits. It is very hard to have a diet that is too low in salt - we evolved in a low salt environment and our bodies are used to getting by on very little - most people in Western Society have far too much, hence our tendency to high blood pressure etc - with potassium it is the opposite - as long as your kidneys are OK and you are not on certain medications it is difficult to have too much.