(For me and most people) Salt is addictive:
Salt addiction: a different kind of drug addiction
If I want to lower my salt intake, I get intense cravings (at night) and will go through a mini-kickoff period. And so it makes sense why some people that have tried reducing salt feel miserable and then when giving in and taking (a bit of) salt: they immediately feel better.
This could explain the conflicting evidence of short term studies vs longer term studies about salt intake and health. Going through a detox is not good for the body and it shows. However, if you can hang in for a few weeks, the detox symptons will subside and you will start to feel better.

Advantages that I seem to have recognized after a few months when my electrolytes have found a new equilibrium (not measured) :

  • lowers cortisol (less anxiety, calmer, better sleep, better focus)
  • easier to put on muscle mass
  • more emotional stability
  • improvements in (skin) auto-immunity issues and better wound healing
  • less estrogen dominant (manboobs are slowly disappearing)
  • less sensitive to hard noises (like breaking glass)
  • spontanously eating less calories (and so losing weight)
  • lower BP (but higher BP in the first few weeks !)
  • improvements in gout (but flare ups in the first few weeks !)
  • less muscle cramps (but more in the first few weeks !)
  • less inflammation (but more in the first few weeks !)

Don’t underestimate the length that food companies will go to to defend salt. It is pratically free, it is (not standalone but in other foods/drinks) addictive and everyone is literally wired to seek it (tastebuds).
And indeed, you need some to sustain (early ?) life, but … not much.
I think a typical Western person, by age 40-50 (?), probably has accumulated enough salt (under the skin) to last for the rest of their life: Time to rethink salt

I also think that the increases in salt (and sugar and oil) consumption are what drives the obesity crisis.
Sure, some people can handle it and don’t overeat, but most will be addicted and overeat.

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I supplement a lot with Sodium, Potassium, Calcium and Magnesium in varying ratios. I wonder some times if an issue with salt (Sodium Chloride as opposed to other salts) is the Chloride rather than the Sodium.

I have been doing really quite well in terms of blood pressure recently with a high level of Sodium supplementation and looking back at my blood tests (weekly) a highish sodium figure can correlate with other good biomarkers (say Cystatin C).

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In any case, our tastebuds are reacting to the chloride part, that ‘stingy’ sensation. That’s why Potassium Chloride works great as Salt-lite replacement. Same thing in sugar, we are specifically looking for the fructose, not the glucose (which tastes bland by itself).
But these replacements are not better. That’s like giving methadone to addicts. Sure it is less harmfull, but it doesn’t ‘solve’ anything.

The anion for me is normally citrate.

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The only food that “needs” salt, for me, is steelcut oatmeal. I forget to add a pinch to the water about ½ the time. The oatmeal with a little salt is delicious, but without is nearly inedible (unless I add berries).

Welcome to the forum.
That’s an interesting talk.

I don’t really understand why salt is so harmful, yet, but all of the health agencies are saying we should have eat low amounts of salt, like they say we should have low cholesterol. I know a lot more about the latter. I wonder what they know.

It’s interesting in many ways, here’s the same person explaining the results.

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I posted this previously in the citrate thread. It seems like that’s the case:

A limited number of clinical observations also suggest that blood pressure is not increased in humans by high dietary Na+ intake in the absence of Cl−

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4325190/

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Thanks for that. Having looked at things it appears that it is a mixture of Na and Cl. I wonder if there is any research on the effects of Potassium Chloride.

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How about replacing some of the salt Sodium bicarbonate with a pinch of sea salt? However, the taste can be bad. Endurance athletes use sodium bicarbonate, it reduces muscle acidity and thus improves performance.

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Thank you for sharing your insights and the links. I shared them with a health group I’m in-I hope you don’t mind.
I’ve been back to no added salt (for the second time) for about 6 months and I must say things just keep getting better. It’s still seems kind of mind bending tbh. I always believed it was innocuous for most people. Now when I go to the store it’s shocking to me how many foods have added salt.
I was really pleased to finally hit the nutrient balance green zone for sodium and potassium in cronometer over the last 2 weeks.

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I don’t follow a no added sodium diet right now. Mostly I don’t like to do things I can’t recommend to others, and it’s hard to recommend something that is so difficult because of the entire food supply is loaded in sodium. So I try and drink enough water, etc, and I will look to see if some drugs can help with this like SGLT2i. There are a lot of food people like to eat that is low in sodium and is generally healthy like fruit, vegetables, and no added sodium nuts, so I find those ones I enjoy as well.

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It can be difficult adjustment. It’s taken me many months to really get in the groove with it again but I’m glad I continued on because the benefits are worth it to me. I’m mid 50’s so I probably have plenty of sodium in storage. My sweat still tastes like salt even though I’m only averaging around 500mg/day. Thanks for starting the topic. It’s really helped me get back on track, solved some vague but inconvenient symptoms and improved the appearance of my skin all over.

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Salt sensitive individuals, are only sensitive to sodium chloride intake : sodium citrate and sodium bicarbonate intake have no effect on blood pressure.

If in fact chloride is the culprit, light salt (potassium chloride) may be just as bad as regular salt, unless you are potassium deficient.

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I got slight food poisoning right after writing this, a little bit nauseous etc, so it made me think differently. It might become worse over the coming days. It’s probably important to try and eat healthy, and find ways to do so, and notice the traps that avoid that.

I’d guess I have to become a health extremist. A no-added sodium extremist. It’s not probably going to do much to lower sodium from 2000 mg to 750 mg or whatever, why I didn’t bother so much, or maybe it will I just don’t have evidence. But it’ll avoid the days of much higher sodium (the tail), and keep the system intact of eating healthy.

I have to rethink “I don’t like to do things I can’t recommend to others, because that thing is difficult”, that’s probably not a good one.

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I don’t have this experience.

@A_User, I hope you recover quickly sir!
Sincerely, Fellow Basket Case & No Added Salt Extremist :joy:
PS- great video

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Several studies point out that replacing (part of) your salt intake with Potassium Chloride works quite well (depending if you are salt sensitive) to reduce blood pressure, so it is definitely doing something: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0735109723082633.
If salt exits the stomach it is already dissolved into it’s anion and cation parts.
What the body subsequently stores in our skin is just the sodium anion, not the chloride cation : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEhEijQnAg0
Before you get confused in this type research, Sodium is called Natrium (Na+) in the rest of the world.
The lymphatic system can remove the sodium from the skin. Extra activation of the lymphatic system removes extra sodium. So … exercise drops blood pressure, who knew ? You can stimulate this lymphatic removal by standing on a vibrating plate (and not doing much exercise at all): Whole-body vibration combined with exercise may be more effective in lowering blood pressure and arterial stiffness than exercise alone in older adults with hypertension - PubMed
Sweating is also great at removal.
Glycosaminoglycans are needed to store the extra sodium in the skin. If there’s not enough it will be taken out of the body.
So, if you are consuming higher amounts of salt, at least take a glucosamine supplement with it so that your body does not have to steal (all) the needed glycosaminoglycans from somewhere else (muscle, connective tissues, …)

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Here’s my sodium labs if it’s of interest. It’s normal but the lower end.

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  1. The study cited on Potassium Chloride is not convincing, since the treatment group received less Chloride (some salt was replaced by flavoring) than the control group, so the blood pressure reduction could have been due to reduction in total Chloride intake. There are other studies that show that in those that are low on potassium, raising potassium will lower blood pressure, so it certainly helps in some cases.

  2. Excellent reminder of how lymphatic system works : Basically blood vessels are constantly leaking small amounts of plasma that pools in empty spaces (sometimes referred to as 3rd space) between cells, much of it under the skin. The lymphatic systems is responsible for draining this leaked plasma (lymph) to drain into the heart, relying on muscle compression to move the lymph. Apparently, whole-body vibration also moves the lymph along. Traditionally, massage is the non-exercise method to drain lymph, and presumably also helps lower blood pressure. Failure to exercise (or use massage or vibration) will cause lymph to accumulate and make tissues bloated, which presumably increases the internal pressure in tissues and raises blood pressure, though the accumulation of salt in the lymph may also pay a role. Diuretics will encourage kidney to dump more blood plasma (water + electrolytes) into the urine, which lowers blood pressure, which in turn encourages flow of lymph back into blood vessels reducing tissue bloating.

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While this thread is about the risks of too much sodium, due to it raising blood pressure and possibly damaging blood vessel walls and the kidney due to salt level spikes in the blood after high salt intake, I wanted to raise the issue of the risks of low sodium. While high sodium causes long term damage it rarely causes immediate harm, while low sodium can rapidly cause serious complications including dizziness, catatonia (temporary complete paralysis) and is the main cause of slip and fall accidental deaths in the elderly due to nerve conduction being impaired by low sodium levels. In fact total mortality rates rise as salt intake is reduced beyond a certain point in the diet, even though cardiac mortality continues to go down.

My late father was a long-time diabetic and suffered from low sodium, probably caused by his high blood sugar levels above 180 acting as a diuretic, triggering the kidney to dump blood sugar along blood plasma. This also results in dehydration and the normal response of drinking water (without added electrolytes) to compensate results in low blood sodium levels. My father spent his last 2 years with me and my wife (after my stepmother did not want to take care of him) so I got to see first hand the effect of low sodium. He was always dizzy on his feet and forced to spent most of his time lying down, in spite of us adding as much salt as possible to his diet. One morning I found him in bed unable to move with all limbs catatonic (stiff and unable to bend) : I still remember his eyes moving and following me but otherwise he was unable to communicate or move and I can only imagine how that feels. I called 911 who took him to the ER where they ran some tests to rule out other issues, but ended up just treating him with hypertonic (3% NaCL) IV, after which he was back to normal within an hour. We were told his blood sodium level was 128 which caused most nerves to stop conducting signals to his muscles.

Just last year my wife (age 71) 2 weeks after her 3rd scheduled surgery in 10 months (back surgery, rotator cuff repair and knee replacement) suddenly developed dizziness and fell a couple times and was taken to the ER where they ran tons of tests all of which came back negative. Over the next 6 months more tests were run (MRI, CAT, 24-hour heart monitor, 30-day heart monitor etc) all coming back negative. Her sodium levels were on the lower end of normal (around 135) but not actually low, so it wasn’t until a review by a cardiologist that they figured out that she was suffering from orthostatic hypotension (low blood pressure when standing), probably caused by plasma loss from all the bedrest periods after the 3 surgeries. The kidney tries real hard to keep blood sodium levels within range, and when body sodium level drop too low will dump excess water from the blood to bring sodium concentration back in range, but that can cause blood pressure to drop, initially only when standing, eventually at all times. This also means it is really hard to tell from blood measurements if your body’s sodium levels are too low (or too high). The cardiologist said she squeezed my wife’s limbs and could detect no tissue bloating, which is the only way to tell if the body has excess sodium (or is depleted), but I am not sure if there is an easy way to check that yourself. My wife had also lost 20% of body weight over the previous year due to taking Mounjaro, which my wife was really pleased with, but may have made the problem with orthostatic hypotension worse, since weight loss naturally results in blood pressure going down. My wife’s blood pressure meds were reduced AND her diuretic discontinued and she was told to consume at least 32 oz of electrolyte drink per day to raise her plasma volume. The electrolyte recommended (Normalyte) is basically 1/4 teaspoon salt + 1/4 teaspoon Potassium Citrate + 1/2 teaspoon Sodium Citrate + 1 teaspoon dextrose (per 16 oz water), and we add lemon juice + extra sweetener to make it more palatable.

I don’t suffer from orthostic hypotention, but my blood pressure has also steadily fallen as I lost weight over the last 2 years (down from 205lb to 145lb) and have had to reduce my blood pressure medication to keep by BP above 100. During my recent colonoscopy, they had to give me IV saline for 30 minutes before the precedure because my blood pressure was 80/50 (I felt normal and did not experience any dizzness walking into the hospital). I now take 16 oz of the same electrolyte mix every morning : I figure this also covers the bases by providing the citrate for the citrate protocol discussed elsewhere in these pages. Also, I noticed a clear mental sharpening that happens in the hours after I drink the electrolyte mix (in the morning) so the brain clearly seems to benefit from extra sodium as well.

Bottom line : I would recommend first treating high blood pressure with exercise (or massage), weight loss (if needed) and medications and only as a last resort reduce salt intake. There is no benefit of reducing salt intake if you don’t suffer from high blood pressure and no easy way to know how close you are to triggering the serious harm from low sodium levels. I would still avoid consuming high salt foods without plenty of fluids since the temporary high blood sodium spikes will damage blood vessels and the kidney in the long run.

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