Some Thoughts On Sudden Cardiac Death – Part V

Part IV of this series ended in the midst of my discussion of clinical conditions that are most associated with hypokalemia. I will continue this discussion shortly. However, after writing part IV, an interesting question was posed by a reader in response to the discussion on foods that are most likely, when consumed in excess, to induce potentially fatal hypokalemic states. Of course, as you saw, those foods are almost always those that have a significant caffeine content. The reader, though, quite understandably, noticed a glaring omission in this discussion – there was no mention of coffee. Therefore, I would like to return to this discussion, focusing on a case report on coffee-induced hypokalemia.