Seems it's not ok, after all:
http://www.drugs.com/pro/potassium-citrate.html
I don't think the AKG tabs are a problem though, because they are not solid potassium, but mixed with other stuff. It's the concentrated potassium that is the problem.
Oats sound good too, but it's hard to find ones that aren't contaminated with gluten...
While I am sure potassium of any form in high amounts as pills can cause GI issues, the doses they mentioned for K-citrate is 95 mEq / day. That is 3.71 grams of elemental potassium as potassium citrate or roughly 37 pills of 99 mg potassium citrate. Yes at those levels there will be real problems.
For over 2 years I took 40-60 mEq / day as extended KCL release and that ended up carving my gut pretty bad.
I basically now supplement less than 1000 mg per day as gluconate or a bit of citrate but get 80-90% of potassium
in food. Still trying to balance it out, but I can usually get 6-8 grams per day in food which is MUCH better tolerated by
the gut imo. Great sources are potato, avocado, spinach, most fruits, green beans, you even get a lot in meats. Nuts are a decent source too, especially walnuts and pecans.
I remember reading somewhere that the forms found in nature in food are quite a variety, including citrate, carbonate, sorbate, glutamate (more than you might think), oxide, gluconate, etc. I will see what I can dig up.
I think the issue is more with the concentrated aspect of a pill. There are powders you could try provided you supply a lot of fluid at the same time. My results with them have been mixed. You could also consider sprinkling very tiny amounts of No Salt substitute which is KCL but I have not tried that yet since the chloride stimulates HCL in the gut.
Potassium is not only very important to me because of the methylation needs (which I still don't think anyone really understands, most seems conjecture to me) but also since I take 0.1 mg of florinef every morning.
In truth if a person is chronically hypokalemic (remember the tests are usually fasting 10-12 hours and done in the morning before you load up), it is my opinion that there is almost ALWAYS another reason involving the kidneys, low taurine, low magnesium intracellular, acidosis, Na-K ATP pump activity, diuretics, medications, things that down-regulate 11 beta HSD1, or other dysfunctions of the metabolism, etc.
4 to 5 grams is easy to get in a reasonable diet and should be more than enough. The exception may be people who are really over-driving the methylation cycle. But that should still be possible to handle with food prioritization.
I found on 800 mcg FolaPro , 800 mcg folinic acid, 5000 mcg mb12, 2.15 mg adb12, 500 mg TMG, 75 mg sublingual P5p, 50 mg riboflavin and 50 mg r5p-sodium / and 200-400 mg SAMe then I had to get 9-10 grams a day to function
and was pounding 3000 mg+ in supplements and raping my gut but if I did not muscle pain was intolerable and I had chronic insomnia. But when I stopped over-methylating (dropped the dose of P5p, r5p) and removed SAMe, TMG, and folinic acid, I seem fine with 7-8 grams of which I take at most 1000 in pill form, usually 600-800. And I am even debating if I need that.
Remember though potassium labs in a CMP are usually done in the morning after a fast, so that will be your low point almost by definition. Again just be careful. Your gut may not need the punishment you may be tossing its way if you supplement hard. And trust me if the gut is not happy, then it affects a LOT of things. That being said be really careful about concentrated pills. I literally burned myself for a long time. Once I stepped back on overmethylating, then my body's needs for potassium dropped.
Note it is my firm belief that the need for potassium on methylation cycle support is still not well understood. I was getting 250 meQ per day in food and supplements but urinating 250 meQ per day in a 24 hour urinanalysis. That is just whacked and there is no way the small dose of florinef I take can explain the 250 meQ excreted (my doctors agreed but were flabbergasted nonetheless). Something is missing in the theories of why potassium is key since NONE of them explain high urination to my knowledge.
And I am baffled as the rest on that topic for now ....
Regarding oats:
A person with actual Celiac's (like myself) not simply gluten intolerance would be wise to avoid oats according to my doctors. Any trace amounts of gluten are very bad for a Celiac sufferer. Just my two cents. You can find all sort of posts on this on various Celiac forums running around on the Internet.