Jim Goetz

Dr. Mike Brandon

Chantea Goetz

 

Salt is Both Good and Bad

Dr. Mike Brandon

 

Let me start off with the notion that I love salt and I always have. I was never one to add salt to my foods, but I’m certainly guilty of seeking out high sodium snacks as a preference, especially when I’m tired. I’ve been reprimanded many times for just saying that I like salt and then lectured on how it’ll raise my blood pressure, give me a heart attack, destroy my kidneys, and so on. Yes, I generally eat “healthy”, exercise regularly, but is that enough? How quickly is my salt addiction killing me? Let’s find out.

 

Firstly let’s point out that salt is an essential mineral, meaning it is critical and required for several life functions. As usual, too much of a good thing flips the switch, but rarely do I hear people saying that they were told to slightly lower their sodium as much as completely remove it from all possible dietary sources, especially if they are hypertensive, which 1 out of 3 of us Americans are. The fun part comes in though when research is scrutinized and we realize that changing the salt levels in our diet for the general population made only a very minor change on blood pressure at 4mmhg/2mmhg. Meaning if your blood pressure is 140/90, limiting salt on average will bring you down to 136/88, which isn’t very different clinically. Then add the fact that low levels of salt have actually been shown to be associated with cardiovascular disease, wait, are we confused yet?

 

So before I go too deep into this topic, lets state that yes, sodium does increase blood pressure, but each time you eat a salt laden meal, it only slightly raises your BP for 2 to 3 hours, and hydration levels will certainly affect this. But a meta-analysis of over 6000 subjects showed that lowering salt intake had no strong correlation to better heart health, but it did present that sodium restriction increased fatality of those with heart failure! There has been conflicting evidence the last few years on this, so lets briefly discuss why.

 

Many of us eat processed foods daily, and with many of us, its all we eat. Almost all processed foods are very high is salt and sugar (we will be returning to that topic shortly), and very low in potassium.  High sodium diets only minimally affect some people, not everybody, and it’s believed to be from not having enough potassium (K+) to level it out. K+ is heart protective against sodium, as well as it’s Na+’s counter part to proper pH levels and BP control. People who have low K+ levels with high salt, as opposed to equal amounts of both (high, normal, or low) are twice as likely to die from a heart attack.

 

Even most of our meats are injected with salt solutions, including many brands of organic meat, specifically steak and chicken. Why? Salt absorbs water, and in the food industry, meat is sold by weight. Inject a little extra salt and saline mix into your 2 lbs chicken, and now it’s 3.5 lbs!...that’s unfortunately why

 

Of course, not all salt is created equal. Table salt found in shakers are stripped of many minerals found in natural salt such as potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, zinc, cobalt, etc, as well as given anti-clumping chemicals to make it easy to sift through; it should be clumpy and crumbly

 

So If I’m willing to stand here and say that sodium isn’t detrimental against your health, than why have we been told differently so often, and why do certain diets like the DASH diet that cuts salt out work so well to lower BP? Well, there are a few patterns here at BioHacker Nation that we just can’t seem to avoid every week, and they are bioavailability, and lower sugar; this is based around the later.

 

Added sugars, particularly fructose, has been shown to increase BP significantly higher than salt does, not to mention its correlation with atherosclerosis which is correlated to high BP as well as heart attack rates, inflammation markers, and insulin resistance. The average American e