Is no salt healthy for your body, and is sodium free salt healthy?
Salt and sugar are endlessly maligned by the medical system. Salt apparently causes scary things like heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke….. so they say. But is this really true?
Salt, aka sodium chloride, is a mineral and electrolyte, meaning it is one of the many sparkplugs of the human body. Without minerals, the body’s many enzymes and hormones CANNOT run correctly.
The LOWER the salt the more STRESS
Reasons to salt your food
Supports proper thyroid function and metabolism
Enhances insulin sensitivity
Can help improve sleep
Decreases inflammation
Reduces stress / positively affects the nervous system
Makes food tasty AF
Helps your body absorb nutrients
Important for hydration and hydrochloric acid production (stomach acid)
Improves circulation
Helps sleep and plays a vital role in the regulation of blood pressure along with potassium
The low salt trend was introduced in the 1950s by …. have a guess …. the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the low salt diet trend introduced by Walter Kempner. Having a low salt diet made the diuretics sold by pharmaceutical companies more affective and 'reduced your risk of dis-ease'. This trend was also marketed to pregnant women and has led to millions of damaged babies!
There are numerous publications showing that low salt diets cause edematous (water retention) problems, even though low salt and diuretics were supposed to prevent those.
A few studies do indeed show salt restrictions may lower your blood pressure a few points (only), but this does not relate to better health! You can look up studies that show an increase of mortality among people who ate less salt over a long period.
Will reducing your salt intake ACTUALLY help lower your high blood pressure and is sodium free salt healthy?
High blood pressure (also referred to as HBP, or hypertension) is when your blood pressure, the force of blood flowing through your blood vessels, is consistently too high.
When sodium is low, it reduces the amount of water in the body, which then can stimulate the RAAS system (renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system). Aldosterone is a stress hormone that reabsorbs sodium, therefore increasing blood pressure and water retention. This happens at the expense of increased loss of potassium, magnesium and calcium.
Guess what else increases aldosterone? High levels of Stress!
“About 25 years ago, David McCarron noticed that the government's data on diet and hypertension showed that the people who ate the most salt had the lowest blood pressure, and those who ate the least salt had the highest pressure. He showed that a calcium deficiency, rather than a sodium excess, was the most likely nutritional explanation for hypertension.” -Ray Peat
In reality, a lack of potassium leads to vasoconstriction and this in return leads to heart and kidney failure and/or high blood pressure.
A loss of magnesium also leads to vasoconstrictions as well as inflammation and bone loss; Magnesium deficiency is already extremely common, but a little extra salt in the diet makes it easier to retain magnesium from our foods.
Blaming salt for high blood pressure is like blaming sugar for diabetes. Things are just not that linear, folks. The symptom is never the cause. In fact, it’s a reflection of the stress response your body is giving out. Hence your salt intake is not the cause of high blood pressure or cardiovascular issues.
What else happens when you do not get enough salt in your diet?
Your dopamine levels decrease and your adrenaline and noradrenaline (more stress hormones) rise and again increase blood pressure via the RAAS system.
SALT is ANTI-STRESS!
Because the RAAS mechanism described above also gets turned on when you are in a state of fight and flight (aka you are in state of chronic stress where your sympathetic nervous system is always in dominance). While this system is turned on you burn through salt. Having more salt will slow the RAAS system.
Low sodium also increases serotonin and plasminogen inhibotors. All these contribute to the accumulation of clots, and are associated with breast cancer and prostate cancer.
Is sodium free salt healthy during pregnancy?
Tom Brewer is an advocate for public health. His work focuses on sharing the important of prenatal nutrition with an emphasis on adequate protein (especially milk), calories, and salt! He explains that sodium maintains blood volume so that water does not get stored in tissue and cause swelling.
When your blood volume reduces so does nourishment for the fetus. Reduced blood volume and bacterial endotoxins also cause the kidneys to release renin which causes the blood to circulate faster and under greater pressure (hypertension).
The same goes for times of ovulation and PMS. When estrogen is elevated, some women experience water retention. Unlike most medical advice listening to your salt cravings before your period might prevent water retention.
Hypothyroidism is a major cause of excessive sodium loss.
"In my studies I find that almost 60% of the population has low thyroid in this day and age" (Broda O Barnes M.D.) Low salt, thyroid levels, progesterone, and protein (not enough bioavailable protein) leads to lower body temperature. When your body temperature lowers, your metabolism slows, and in this case the use of oxygen slows and a formation of lactic acid increases. Lactic acid buildup causes muscle fatigue and soreness.
Sodium stimulates the energy metabolism, increases carbon dioxide production and protects against inflammation and maladaptive stress reactions. Magical!
Salt for pH balance?
Carbon dioxide plays a very important role in balancing your pH levels. It does it with the help of sodium by balancing out calcium inside your cells. Calcium is very alkaline and activates a lot of enzymes in your cells. When in excess it can lead to stress.
Salt also increases your energy production.
Sodium ions activate an enzyme called sodium-potassium ATPase which is responsible for turning ATP into ADP and phosphate. This stimulates the consumption of fuel and oxygen maintaining an adequate level of ATP (energy). Note how it says sodium potassium ATPase?? Yes, you need a lot of potassium AND salt for this pathway to function properly.
In the Hair Mineral Test that I provide to my clients, we can discover your cellular levels of sodium and potassium which is much more accurate than a measure of nutrients floating in your blood. Those fluctuate too much throughout the day, whereas in a hair test you will see a 3-month average picture of your nutritional status.
Now let’s discuss the important of salt and insulin usage.
Did you know that there's evidence that the hormone insulin helps regulate sodium levels in the body? Specifically, insulin helps the body RETAIN sodium. When the body is depleted of sodium, it will do anything it can to retain balanced electrolyte levels. Remember, when sodium is low, it reduces the amount of water in the body, which then can stimulate the RAAS system (renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system). When this system is activated, it can increase resistance to insulin. We wan to be sensitive to insulin. This is why when we are stressed, we crave salt. We NEED salt. The harder our adrenal glands have to work to pump out cortisol, DHEA, adrenaline, etc, The faster our sodium burn rate is.
This is why using high quality sea salt to taste is a must for hormonal health. I add it to everything: bone broth, OJ or watermelon, my food (duh), my water, my coffee, EVERYTHING.
High salt consumption leads to diseases?
When you find studies that show an increase in disease with high salt consumption you must look at all the other things that person is eating or doing. A lot of foods, especially foods loaded with PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acids), like nuts, fish and grains cause a lot of cellular clogging, using up all your nutrients to detox PUFAs. They often come in conjunction with salt seasonings. So was it the food or the salt that caused the “disease” in those studies?
Which salt to use?
I have had a long love affair with different types of salt and have tried the most deluxe versions available. But to be honest, a lot of that is hype! Don’t waste your money on fancy salt that can be loaded with impurities. A simple white sea salt is all you need!
The pink in Himalayan salt has a lot of inorganic iron as well as inorganic trace minerals. Believe it or not there is a difference between bioavailable trace minerals and inorganic = not bioavailable trace minerals.
Redmond’s Salt is loaded with iron that can have a potentially toxic effect on the body due to a lack of sufficient bioavailable copper in our diets.
The grey in Celtic salt can be residual mud and impurities.
Most other fancy salts have natural flavors added to them. Like truffle salt. Do you really think it’s made with truffles? You would spend big $$ if that were so ;-). A lot of salt deposit sites can be contaminated with toxins and heavy metals. It is good idea to go with a company that is aware of those factors and has implemented testing for them.
The only thing you want to pay attention to with sodium chloride is the caking agents. You don’t want that, but otherwise plain old table salt will do the trick.
Transitioning from low sodium, to normal, to increased amounts:
If you have been using low-sodium salt, slowly switch over to normal sea salt and start using it gently. Over several weeks you can slowly increase the amount. Just pay attention to how you feel. Most likely it will kick start your body which can feel intense compared to your previous state. Over several months you can add in more and more salt.
If you aren’t aware of adrenal cocktails, they are a wonderful way to increase your potassium and sodium ratio / levels in your body.
I am ending this blog post by sharing an excerpt from Ray Peat's work which sums up the importance of salt, and increasing your metabolic rate.
“Now that inflammation is recognized as having a central role in the degenerative diseases, the fact that renin, angiotensin, and aldosterone all contribute to inflammation and are increased by a sodium deficiency, should arouse interest in exploring the therapeutic uses of sodium supplementation, and the integrated use of all of the factors that normally support respiratory energy production, especially thyroid and progesterone. Progesterone’s antagonism to aldosterone has been known for many years, and the synthetic anti-aldosterone drugs are simply poor imitations of progesterone.
But the drug industry is interested in selling new drugs to block the formation and action of each of the components of the RAAS, rather than an inexpensive method (such as nutrition) to normalize the system.”
Go get salty and pay attention to your cravings. Not always are they a bad thing.
Resources:
https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/salt.shtml
https://teachmephysiology.com/urinary-system/regulation/the-renin-angiotensin-aldosterone-system/
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