(03-02-12) Don?t Have Faulty Ideas bout Salt

Catherine J. Frompovich
By now just about everybody?s heard that we should cut back on salt to avoid high blood pressure, heart disease and other physiological complications. But that advice is wrongheaded and simplistic. Getting too little salt can be as harmful as getting too much. The fact is you need just the right amount of salt and the right kind of salt to protect your health.
Salty Revelation
In November, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a revelatory paper discussing the relationship of sodium imbalances with cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke and congestive heart failure among hospitalized patients. One of the findings confirmed a correlation between these problems and having higher or lower sodium levels than the American average of 4,000 to 6,500 mg of sodium a day.
From their analyses, the researchers came up with a J-shaped curve demonstrating that people had cardiovascular problems when they had high and low salt consumption. People in the middle range ran a lower risk. Also, the same researchers noted that the risk of a heart problem didn?t occur until sodium levels reached and/or exceeded 6,500 mg a day. This seems to indicate that we need more sodium than has been generally accepted. But we should limit the type of salt we get in processed foods like potato chips and canned soups.
Across The Great Divide
However, there seems to be a huge scientific divide: Consumers have been told for what seems like ages that daily sodium intake should be no more than 2,000 mg a day according to the World Health Organization (WHO); 1,500 mg a day according to the U.S. American Heart Association (AHA); and 1500 to 2300 mg, depending upon age, per the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Personally, and as a retired natural nutritionist, I think the WHO, AHA and HHS figures are ? and have been ? off the mark for several reasons.
First and foremost, there are subtle differences between plant-based sodium and table salt that the medical and pharmaceutical industries and health agencies don?t make clear to consumers. Said differences influence whether body chemistry works efficiently or detrimentally. Sodium is essential to life processes, and that?s why nature includes it in all food.
Salt Observation
Sodium (Na for the Latin Natrum) is in the alkali metals group of elements possessing number 11 on the Periodic Table of the Elements and is the sixth most-abundant element. The most familiar or common sodium compound is halite (sodium chloride, NaCl) also known as table salt, which is refined salt that is overused ? if not abused ? by the food processing industry.
Sodium is a key mineral element in maintaining fluid balance in and between cells in the body, plus it plays a vital electrical role critical for nerve function.
Here?s where it may get a little confusing: Humans evolved over thousands upon thousands of years eating plant foods that basically were balanced by nature with correct ratios of sodium to potassium for cellular functions. That apparently unrecognized factoid was not valued, either was forgotten or deliberately ignored, and consequently not factored in when the food processing industry began adding huge amounts of salt to food. In addition, food additives deposited in processed foods often include sodium in their composition.
Minerals In Vegetables
Contrast this unbalanced emphasis on sodium to the mineral balance in vegetables. Fresh asparagus, which is a great aid to kidney health, contains almost six times as much potassium as sodium. Bananas are also rich in potassium. Nature embedded various nutrients within all plant foods that automatically balance nutrient status if and when we eat a varied diet of organically grown food, as raw or unprocessed as possible, without chemicals or genetically modified organisms.
Additives to table salt can include ? depending upon country ? iodine in the form of iodide salts (United States); fluoride (a protoplasmic poison) in countries where water fluoridation does not occur (France); numerous chemical anti-caking agents; iron; folic acid; and even a form of sugar (usually dextrose supposedly to stabilize iodide).
In the JAMA study I mentioned at the beginning, heart problems only seemed to be linked to excess salt when daily sodium levels reached 6,500 mg. Because what is truly important is the balancing of the four cationic electrolytes: sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium.
But conventional medicine is trying to pigeonhole everyone?s sodium/potassium ratios into a one-size-fits-all model that over-prescribes blood pressure medications. But these medications may be doing more harm than good, by taking minerals out of the body and harming the kidneys.
Sea Salt
According to conventional wisdom, I should have been on high blood pressure meds for years. But my diet contains sea salt. Consequently, my most recent blood pressure reading was 106/60. Of course, I don?t eat processed foods or allow chemicals in my food or water and haven?t for 40 years.
The way electrolytes function in the body, sodium usually works outside cells while potassium functions inside the cells. This placement functions in the maintenance of a bodily balance of these minerals.
But when you take diuretic drugs for your blood pressure and don?t get adequate sea salt, you throw this balance out of whack. Studies like the one in JAMA show that we are long overdue for a re-evaluation of the medical hypertension paradigm.
In addition, there?s no telling how many seniors who are on hypertension meds become dehydrated. Often, in these cases, doctors provide an intravenous drip to re-supply fluid and electrolytes. Eating plenty of leafy greens and high potassium foods, plus losing some weight, could bring blood pressure into normal range.
An imbalance in sodium and potassium may also be responsible for heart arrhythmias or, perhaps, dementias linked to strong diuretics that drain the body of fluids and essential nutrients. And too many people forget to drink plenty of pure water.
To give you an idea of where sodium is in your diet, here are some examples of salt content from the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference:
One cup drained snap green beans canned??? 354 mg sodium [mostly NaCl]
One cup cooked without salt fresh green beans?. 1 mg [natural-occurring] sodium
One cup drained broccoli cooked without salt ??64 mg [natural-occurring] sodium
One tablespoon salted butter????????. 82 mg sodium [mostly NaCl]
One tablespoon unsalted butter??????? 2 mg [natural-occurring] sodium
12 oz carbonated ginger ale soda?????? 26 mg sodium
One cup drained carrots canned??????? 353 mg sodium [mostly NaCl]
One cup drained cooked fresh carrots????.. 90 mg [natural-occurring] sodium
In these values, you can readily see how food processing changes sodium content. To find the natural sodium and table salt contents of foods listed from A to Z on a total of 26 pages, you can study this U.S. Department of Agriculture website.

Source: easyhealthptions.com

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