Salt Report
The first step in understanding the benefits of salt is to fully grasp how natural it is
It may be the most natural thing a person can consume. This is because hundreds of millions of years ago, humans evolved from ocean dwelling creatures. This is reflected in the contents of our blood. 90 percent of the mineral content of the ocean is salt which is exactly mirrored in our blood
“salt accounts for 90 percent of all the minerals in our blood1″
In this way our blood still mimics the ancient oceans and conditions in which we evolved. Many things have changed about our physiology in the last few million years but the stability of the electrolyte balance in our blood and extracellular fluid, show the importance of this very capable life-sustaining mineral. Salt is such a vital nutrient that it’s not just life-sustaining but also life-giving. So much so that, a low salt diet can be utilized as a natural contraceptive. As stated in the book, The Salt Fix, certain groups of indigenous cultures consume very low salt,
“The low-salt-eating Yanomamo Indians average only one live birth every four to six years, despite being sexually active and not using contraception. Research has found that women with salt-wasting kidneys due to a congenital adrenal problem have a decreased fertility and childbirth rate.”2
If you eat excess salt the body simply tells the kidneys to absorb less and the GI tract to reduce sodium absorption
Also our skin is a major “salt sink” so our body can store extra salt in our skin. These techniques give the body various options to deal with excess salt. Inferring that our body can handle high salt just fine but it’s not designed to run on low salt. So when following a low sodium regimen, the concentration of salt in the blood can become low. To compensate, the body will push water from the blood into the surrounding tissues in order to maintain the proper balance of salt in the blood. This leads to cellular swelling and low blood volume which can shut down various organs, like the brain and kidneys. Simply put, if we don’t consume salt we would die. If later the sodium concentration is elevated, the body will push the excess water out of the surrounding cells back into the blood to maintain proper blood volume and level of sodium in the blood. This leads to a seesaw of cellular shrinking and swelling that can damage the structure of the cell. To prevent this from happening, it’s key to maintain the proper intake of sodium. Remember, any extra sodium will simply be eliminated by the kidneys.
“Your kidneys filter almost 4 pounds of salt a day. The current recommended amount of salt intake in a day is around 1 teaspoon (6 grams) our kidneys filter this amount of salt every five minutes.3″
70 percent of the ATP (energy) used by the kidneys is simply used to absorb sodium. So by eating extra sodium you’re giving your kidneys a break.
If your worried about the blood pressure raising effects of sodium, don’t be
80 percent of people with normal blood pressure are not sensitive to the minuscule blood pressure raising effects of salt at all. Even for someone with hypertension, it’s been shown that 55 percent of these individuals are not sensitive. People with healthy kidneys can excrete ten times the amount of salt we consume in a day. Which is a massive amount of salt. You might be thinking, as i did, if this is true, then “why can’t we drink ocean water?” It’s not the salt concentration that’s a problem. As stated before, our kidneys are perfectly capable of excreting massive amounts of salt. The only problem is that water has to be excreted, with that salt as well. This would eventually lead to dehydration. However, if we had access to fresh non-salted water that could replace what was lost, we could 100% drink ocean water.
A quick history on why people think salt is bad
It all goes back to a couple bad epidemiological studies, small human trials and Lewis Dahl. Epidemiological studies can only show association not causation. With this is mind, some do show a slight increase in blood pressure with increased salt intake. However, the studies also show that following a low sodium diet, which commonly recommends around 1 teaspoon of salt a day, will only lower your blood pressure .8/.2 mm Hg. So you’ll go from a blood pressure of 120/80 to 119/79.8. Not a significant difference at all. However this didn’t stop Lewis Dahl from making it his life goal to demonize salt. He was considered a man of “strong conviction.” And for whatever reason he believed that salt caused hypertension. To prove his theory, he performed various rat studies. However, he knew that salt had little to no effect on blood pressure in rats so he interbred them until they showed the salt sensitive traits he was looking for. Simply put, to prove his theory he bred rats to be extra sensitive to the blood pressure raising effects of salt. These rats are now called “Dahl salt sensitive rats.” He then published papers on the results of feeding his rats high salt diets and the resulting increase in blood pressure. He never clearly stated, the equivalent number of grams of salt needed for humans to feel these blood pressure effects. It turns out that even in these salt sensitive rats, it equals to almost 40 grams of salt a day for a comparable salt sensitive human. However in normal rats who didn’t develop the salt sensitive genes, their blood pressure didn’t increase even on the human equivalent of 100grams of salt a day.
There has never been any compelling evidence linking salt to a dramatic increase in blood pressure
There is however, a vast amount of negative evidence resulting from a low salt diet, which includes, but is not limited to, increased heart rate, compromised kidney function, raised insulin levels, among other ailments. Without enough salt our neurons wont fire, your muscles wont contract and various bodily functions can become compromised. On a low sodium diet your body will produce more aldosterone which tells your body to hold onto sodium by conserving it not only in the kidneys but also in the salivary glands, sweat glands and colon. Having constant high levels of aldosterone is associated with increased inflammation, kidney disease, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and increased blood pressure. So yes the advice to consume less salt can actually lead to an increase in blood pressure.
The increased insulin is something that deserves a deeper dive
When your body starts secreting more insulin, it tells the kidneys to absorb more salt. It also locks in energy in our fat cells, making it inaccessible. With increased insulin, the only energy available for all of our bodily functions is through ingested carbohydrates. That can cause a vicious cycle, coined “cellular starvation,” where your body simply can’t access the fat stores or protein stores we have. This can lead to Type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The standard American diet is high in carbohydrates and therefore high in insulin
As stated earlier, insulin tells your kidneys to retain sodium. And if your kidneys are healthy they can respond to this signal strongly and retain most of your ingest sodium content. Even if its more than the body needs at that particular time. However if your kidneys aren’t functioning correctly, if your diabetic for example, then they wont respond to the insulin signal completely because high blood glucose can damage the kidneys is such a way that it becomes sodium wasting even in the presence of high insulin. So if you insist on eating excess carbohydrates then I recommend you consume around 8-10 grams or 3000-4000 milligrams of sodium. If you decide to adopt a whole food, low-carb lifestyle, then the upper limit of salt is mush higher. My personal protocol consists of 5 grams (one teaspoon) of salt pre and post workout to help with hydration, muscle pump and recovery. Along with salting food with every meal. Resulting in around 12-15 grams a day. Also it’s important to point out that we lose around 1 gram of salt every hour of working out. So if your physically active in any way, increasing your salt intake that day is a good idea.
References
- DiNicolantonio, James. The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong–and How Eating More Might Save Your Life (p. 16). Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.
- DiNicolantonio, James. The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong–and How Eating More Might Save Your Life (p. 30). Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.
- DiNicolantonio, James. The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong–and How Eating More Might Save Your Life (p. 28). Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.