What Happens When You Quit Salt?
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- Опубліковано 5 лип 2023
- Should you be on a low sodium diet? What actually happens to your body and brain when you reduce salt?
Electrolytes: Are Sports Drinks a Scam? • Electrolytes: are spor...
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References/Further Reading:
1. content.time.com/time/subscri...
2. bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/4/e...
3. www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-r...
4. www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.11...
5. www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-r...
6. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
7. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056...
8. www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritio....
9. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
10. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
11. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
12. www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-ed...!
www.sciencedaily.com/releases...
academic.oup.com/cardiovascre...
teachmephysiology.com/biochem....
www.health.harvard.edu/stayin...
www.sciencedaily.com/releases...
www.cdc.gov/salt/potassium.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponat...
My mom ended up becoming hyponatremic because of a low sodium diet! Her roommate's dad died of cardiovascular disease while they were both in college. It spooked both of them so much that they immediately cut sodium from their diets as much as possible. The issue with this - they were young healthy women in their 20s, not an aging man in his 60s! So they both over corrected. Low sodium everything all the time, and they never ever added salt to the cooking. All through my childhood she had horrible headaches, lethargy, and when she went to the doctor about it he was just like ".... I can't believe I'm saying this, but dear God woman, eat a bag of chips every once in a while!"
(Gotta be the only time a doctor has ever recommended potato chips!)
At least he didn't tell her to buy a salt lick (a huge chunk of solid salt for cattle to use freely) and use it daily. :D
I personally am salt-sensitive, but unless I'm eating premade food items I keep forgetting to salt enough when I cook from scratch as I usually do, so I have to make sure I consume enough. Especially on hot summer days. I try to keep pickled stuff around because those are usually really salty and easy to add to the side of any meal.
Whole food plants (especially greens or celery) have lots of natural salt that the body needs. But yeah if eat no veggies on a low salt diet you can come into some problems.
@@Zenjohnny You cannot get enough sodium from land greens alone, especially not in the summers. One medium stalk of celery has about 30 milligrams of sodium, and people need ~2.3g of pure sodium per average day. People on low sodium diets are not prohibited from eating celery. Did you think it was exaggeration how much humans prized salt throughout all of our history until recently? Even land mammals prize salt, especially the further inland you are.
That happened to me as well! I felt so horrible and I didnt know why, it took me weeks to figure it out. Salt isnt evil, its necessary! You just gotta find the right balance.
I used to eat a lot of eggs (cheap and easy dinner) and had to use up a bunch of butter I'd bought to bake with, but never did. So I was using unsalted butter for my dinners. After I made that shift, I started having more headaches and my vision would go dark when I stood up (which is usually associated with anemia, but my iron levels are fine). So, I think that when I reduce salt intake, my blood pressure drops and it becomes unhealthy.
Many products have way too much salt which gets you used to high salt so reducing to normal amount tastes under salted!
Exactly. Things will taste “bland.”
Low to no salt is good.
@@MrJwyneno. The right amount of sodium, potassium, and calcium FOR THE AMOUNT OF WATER YOU DRINK is healthy.
@@MrJwyne. “No salt” is dangerous.
@@MrJwyne😊 by
I know plenty of people who add salt to their food before even tasting it. 🫨
Salt is one thing I really struggle with. I can turn away sugar and caffeine easily, but salty food has a real pull on me.
Yes for sure. Dedicate cheat days for such meals. In that way you can enjoy them in a regulated manner
You could just exercise an hour and get sweaty. Your sweat salt concentration reflects internal, and you can sweat faaaaar more and require to consume more than the double daily value to simply be healthy.
Also just drink a lot of water
I have the opposite problem. I struggle with sugar and sweets. Being anorexic isn't fun either
I’m the opposite. I turned away salt easily due to kidney stones. But ice cream is my struggle.
Back when I was in basic training in the army, my drill sergeant used to always eat sunflower seeds. Never saw him without some in his mouth. He later explained that since we (including him, yes) did so much PT and consumed so much water, it was important to get a bit more sodium in his body so that his body retained water better and he wasn't pissing 17 times a day.
I really enjoy the UA-cam community so much and how some show others so much love its feels great to be part as a viewer and a creator
@@Lswat717ok boomer
My drills didn't do this, but made us drink a quart of water an hour. I still do that to this day, but it's more like half a liter an hour.
Smart man, can't get enough salt. People think it's sodium that kills. It's the processed food that most people eat.
They only made us salt our food at the defac, but my platoon sergeant always had sunflower seeds. Man would just spit them out and leave trails of husks everywhere we went 😂
Major flaw with any study replacing sodium chloride with potassium chloride is that arguably most of the benefits are from the higher potassium sodium ratio rather than reducing the sodium. Generally speaking, increasing potassium is more beneficial than reducing sodium.
Another potential issue with some studies is that typically it is junk foods that are high in sodium, so the benefits of reducing sodium could be partly reducing the junk foods that are loaded with it.
While your first point might be correct, are you suggesting villagers in rural china have a junk food problem?
@@kevinbarnard355 "Another potential issue with some studies..." Tell me how your overly specific inference follows. It is not like I said that every study has this issue specifically.
On what basis are you saying that adding potassium is better than lowering salt? A systematic analysis published in the Lancet 2019 puts diets high in sodium as the no. 1 deadliest risk factor above low intake of fruits and vegetables:
GBD 2017 Diet Collaborators. Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet. 2019 May 11;393(10184):1958-1972.
When I developed an autoimmune disorder, I had to start making all my food from scratch.
I love my spices so I never really bothered with salt.
When I started passing out, the doctor told me that he almost never sees it, but my salt was dangerously low!
Plus it turned out I have POTS, so salt is my friend...
Salt is everyone's friend. Its just that people abuse the sodium, and don't take in enough potassium which need to be in balance within the body
What food can be spiced properly without salt. I don’t understand this
@@2010Failbrids Exactly!
@@ordinarychef The issue isn't the amount of sodium. It's the imbalance of sodium to potassium. Increase the potassium, and issues caused by "high sodium" go away. Also, carb consumption causes retention of water and electrolytes. Balance is the key.
@@ordinarychef Actually, it's as simple as using Potassium Chloride salt and sprinkling it onto your food. I don't eat fruit or vegetables at all and was able to fix my hypertension issues with removing carbs entirely and using potassium. Plants always throw electrolyte balance off because the fiber absorbs salt and is an antinutrient.
My dad was put on a low sodium diet towards the end of his life, so I had to learn to cook to suit his medical needs. I seldom use salt to cook anymore myself. Now everything tastes very salty to me.
Yeah, my dad started using potssium salt. It tastes a little weird.
we need both sodium and potassium
@@MsSarcasticity Duh 🙄
Everything tastes salty when it comes to premade food.
@@PhantomQueenOne duh
I didn’t know the symptoms of not consuming enough salt was what I experienced two years ago, kinda of scary 😵💫
I was in my 20s when I was diagnosed with hypertension. It made no sense at first since I was well within the recommended BMI range and had very low cholesterol.
Cutting down my salt intake to within the recommended range was near impossible without making everything I consumed from scratch, which was difficult as a full time teacher.
You can reach the recommended daily intake in the US with just one fast food meal, or just by getting a few basic premade foods like canned soup, ham, or cheese
Canned soup has a crazy amount of salt in it! I usually try to grab the low sodium version if I can because the amount in regular soup is ridiculous, and the taste isn’t really all that different.
consume more potassium. The issue isnt too much sodium, its not enough potassium
I've had to give up canned soup, Hormel tamales, and many frozen foods over the 60%+ daily sodium intake per meal.
@@MsSarcasticity
this is the correct answer. we need 3 to 8 grams of salt a day depending on how active we are. if you eat 1g of salt, you're blood pressure will spike. if you eat 1g of salt, and 2g potassium, your blood pressure will stay normal.
@@shadowthetwisted I'm quite well-versed in this. I used to be almost 400lbs and hypertensive. Now that I eat a very low carb and ketogenic diet, my body is a lot more sensitive to electrolytes and I can easily get thrown out of balance if I'm sick or am sweating excessively. I can tell if it's my sodium, potassium, or magnesium that is low as each will cause different symptoms in my body. I literally drink salt water every day (potassium and sodium in the correct ratios) as well as liberally salt my food. My blood pressure is always normal when I drink the salt water. If I feel bad because my electrolytes are low, I always measure as prehypertensive. It's that noticable
Hyponatremia. Hypo- meaning low, natr meaning pertaining to sodium, or more formally natrium as shown on the periodic table of elements, and -emia meaning presence in blood. Low sodium presence in blood. ☝🏻
I keep telling people that having a basic knowledge of latin and greek roots will help them build better vocabularies and understanding. And thanks for helping point that out! 😘
The video gets the limits for salt mixed up with the limits for sodium. 2300mg is the recommended sodium intake. That's not the same as salt. Salt is roughly 40% sodium by weight. So the recommended daily intake for salt is closer to 6g. Please fix the video as it's confusing if not harmful currently.
Exactly, I was perplexed by the numbers here. 3400mg is only ~1/2 Tsp which is way too low for the average consumer.
You are absolutely right, this guy didn't do the math properly. For athletes the salt, not only sodium, needs to be taken at a higher amount.
This is entirely wrong. The human body is actually perfectly capable of sustaining a proper electrolyte balance on only 50-100mg of sodium per day. This is if you eat a healthy diet that includes potassium and don’t over consume water. How do you think humans survived before salt was easily accessible! They only had access to the small amounts you get from meat, fruits and vegetables. Which was only around 50-100mg per day at most.
Illusion truth effect
Listen if you look at the fuchking map, it looks like life started where there is a source of water, in Bangladesh life started near the sea then, slowly moved towards the land where the grounds are much harder that the sea area as a result we could have gotten the salt from the sea area, but as people moved towards the hard ground area that is in the north of the Bangladesh map, people started to have goiter and hyper or hypo-thyroidism. So people in the salt industry started to use iodine in the salt, that same salt most Bangladeshi used to get from the sea, and as people started to move away from the sea area the more goiter started to appear, also I diagnosed many of the problems my mom had and and some of those problem started from low salt consumption cause the doctor suggested it, the doctor was a diabetic related doctor who also had no idea about nutrition of how much salt to eat per day leading to hyperthyroidism which came down after I read a book related to salt only causing her hyperthyroidism to go down, so I am saying that before you open your mouth, put some mouthwash then spit is out, to see you are actually dumb or not.
even that is extremely low. and i dont think thats the limit but the bare minimum someone should eat to not die
The sodium intake if you check it by country doesn't correlate to hypertension rates. It's almost inversely correlated, with asian contries which have higher sodium intake also having the lowest hypertension rates. Take South Korea as an example. The body can get rid of excess salt very easily unless you have some sort of renal dysfunction, whereas lacking sodium, that is a problem.
They're probably getting enough potassium and other minerals. The problem with high sodium is when you're only getting too much sodium
Perfect timing, considering just 12hrs ago I was ready to eat plain table salt. Salt cravings after exercising a lot go wild
I exercise quite a lot and I did notice being dehydrated without being thirsty and drinking water not actually helping. I started to eat salt when I felt this way, this actually solved the problem.
@@jenidu9642 had this exact same thing happen like a year ago, it was crazy to experience thirst with water not helping at all
salt fixed it in like a day for me too
Pickle juice. Trust me.
@@You_work_tomorrow yeah I've been eating pickles lately because I don't have access to pickle juice rn. Buying liquid IV or something later today because my sodium intake is ungodly rn
Pedialyte may be better? Or lightly salted water and bananas?
I just wanted to say how refreshing and relatable your videos are, thank you for sharing your talents.
I’m a science educator from the US who teaches things like lab safety and physiology; I recommend you to everyone! Students, adults, parents, elders, EVERYBODY! Thank you for making my world better and my students lives easier. We’re spreading the ASAPScience gospel 😍
Almost makes me glad to have chronic low BP. With all the salt in food at the grocery store (especially more affordable items) I couldn't imagine trying to cut back on salt intake so much.
An important tip to see if your low on sodium/salt, is you take a pinch and if it is really sweet your body needs it, if just salty salt salt, you don't, handy tip for people already on a rather low sodium diet and are not sure if they should have more.
I moved myself to a lower salt diet a few weeks ago to help with blood pressure, and i could see the changes that were happening but didn't fully understand them. Thank you guys for always making these and helping people understand the science behind it!
There was a case of a kid who has a condition where his body will required lots of salt 🧂 to the point he actually died cause the doctors recommend to cut salt. The story behind that is fascinating it could be great if you guys explain the science behind it cause I’m curious
Must've been bad doctors
There are kidney diseases called salt losing nephropathies such as diabetic nephropathy,falcon disease etc.Those people usually cant take back the sodium filtered from the kidney causing them to lose sodium with urine. But you shouldnt tell anyone with hyponatremia to cut salt it would be stupid so what kind of rookie doctor that is,even 3rd year medical students know that electrolytes are not a thing to be messed with
@@exosproudmamabear558 I'm not even a doctor and even I know electrolytes aren't to be messed with
@@metal_pipe9764 but chimps or apes dont die they dont add salt to their food n they live healty so is something suspicious
Just started cutting as much salt out of my diet. Mid 40s and started experiencing tension headaches for the first time. Cutting down salt and caffeine has helped a lot.
what a strangely timed video, ive been stress eating a lot recently and its mostly been salty snacks. the bloating symptom has been noticeable at points. ill take this as a sign to stop and cope with personal issues a different way 😅
This is very interesting. I'm looking into changing my routine but I also don't want to put myself into shock by switching up things too quickly.. so this is a good eye opener even if listening to things like this stress me out a bit. Thanks much man!
Fun fact: I'm on a high salt diet (under doctor supervision) because of chronic low blood pressure and dehydration. I don't usually eat processed foods, so it can be hard to get enough salt
I know this feeling. My PCP and cardiologist want me to add at least 4 grams of sodium to my diet daily. I'm living off of pickles and V8!
Power aid’s water is rlly rlly good for this. I have rlly active pots (I call it super active cuz just moving positions drastically affects my blood pressure and heart) and this stuff makes me feel half normal for a little bit. I highly recommend!!
@@lordparoose48 I use Liquid IV, it's kept me out of the hospital for dehydration. Sorry about your pots! I have something related, my heart stops instead of beating faster
@@kokitsunetora I’ve heard of that stuff! I should give it a try. Power aid seems to just be everywhere and not a lot of people realise how good it is for this sort of thing!!
omg, you’re like a fainting goat!!
@@lordparoose48 lol, yeah, fainting goat describes me 😂. I've been fainting less since I got my pacemaker
I stopped eating salt almost one year ago, no salt and no fat, i rejuvenated and feel amazing, i had kidney problems, now they are great and healed. maybe the secret is on not eating fat too. if you remove the salt and continue to eat poorly, or crappy foods. it's not gonna make a difference. Find your balance is important. My skin looks amazing and my health improved so much. i'm 45 and everyone gives 32 now. I used to be always sleepy. now i have energy. But my diet is like diabetes diet, and i eat everything boiled super simple, no fat. it's been a blessing
I had a problem of going to the bathroom too much about half of my life when I started to eat healthier. My blood salt levels were perfect and I never thought anything of it. Until one day of reading about iodine, I thought that I should add a bit of iodized salt to my diet just to make sure. Within a few weeks my bathroom problems were mostly solved. No more issues taking car trips. To add to this, got my blood labs back, still IDENTICAL blood sodium levels. Seems my body was doing a really good job keeping my blood levels fine, but my kidneys had to get rid of the excess water.
Interesting video and thank you for sharing.
I was already in the hospital for liver failure when they massively reduced the sodium in my diet to try to keep my body from over-absorbing water, since my kidneys were struggling, too.
I'm vegetarian and it was hospital fare, so I couldn't really notice the difference. The only food they gave me was fresh fruit, veggie subs, and oatmeal, and protein shakes, when they let me eat at all.
My blood pressure was already worryingly low (it always is), my heart is in great shape, and once they let me go home for awhile they let me go back to eating a moderate amount of salt so my muscle function could improve, and everything I loved before tasted NASTY. Everything tasted like I'd poured a dispenser of salt into a cup of Ramen. It lasted for months.
Main problem is not having extra salt in meals, problem is fast foods which have high levels of salt in it already...
I mean, cut out fast food? It's cheaper to cook at home anyway
@@yelpsman exactly. That was my point. Thank you :). Since i stopped or lets be honest, eating less outside, my health improved significantly, salt and salt intake reduction is not only one benefit i recieved.
Thanks for the information I learned a lot I didn’t know a lot about salt till I watched this video hope you and Gregg are doing well :) ❤
Excellent work and great information. I was a salt-a-holic for most of my life, and reduced it several years ago and my experience tracks with your research.
I ended up in ER for hyponatremia during summer because I drank too much water and ate too little. Haven't worried about consuming too much salt after that.
Last summed due to a long heat wave i started drinking LOTS of water. However i don't eat much salt because i don't like it, and i was also eating less due to heat. I ended up being dehydrated, i kept craving for more and more water and then the muscle twitching. Turns out salt also works the other way around, not only you need to drink if you have too much salt, you also need a little more salf if you have more water.
Yep! A Gatorade or Pedialyte will help with that. I learned that the hard way when I passed out after drinking a gallon in a day when I had the flu.
Summer*
simmer* @@metal_pipe9764
You guys are my inspiration and made me love science even more! 🙌🙌
Great Video!!
PLEASE add English/ Spanish captions, I need my family to see this !!!
Low sodium diets are very hazardous and you should really only go on one if a doctor prescribes such a diet to you and monitors it closely and carefully. I'd rather have a little too much salt in my diet than not enough.
Roughly 25 years ago (I'm now 30), my grandmother taught me how to cook a variety of food without (much) salt being added because of what this video informs about excess sodium intake; high blood pressure and other negative effects to the body.
I'm grateful for the lessons being ingrained to me at an early age so my body isn't suffering nowadays with how much precedence fast food and how much salt is added to many restaurants dishes nowadays.
My Aunt showed me some tricks to avoid large amounts of salt in foods.
We're Italian, so I learned that tomato sauce needs to cook for a good long time. Usually it needs to cook for at least 4 hours very low. But if you put salt in too early, the tang of the salt will fade as it cooks. SO, to remedy this, you add the salt later, when the sauce has been cooking for a long while. This rule applies well to most soups that contain vegetables. Add the salt when there is about an hour left for cooking, rather than at the beginning.
With Salt is the balance between salt and potassium important, when eating not enough potassium it can also create issues, to little potassium is also very common, because it is more prevelant in more healthy foods. With an unhealthy diet you will get lot of salt and not enough potassium, the salt is not the problem but the lack of potassium is
Salt is important, and the body is better at managing it than most think, and lots of salt related issues do start because of an lack of salt
exactly. the problems happen because of LOW salts not high, or an imbalance of salts
Maybe an explanation of the difference between sodium and (table)salt would have fit in this video ;)
I was really confused when you mentioned the daily intake recommendation of 3400mg of salt. I always read 6g of salt would be the limit. Turns out 3,4g is the limit for sodium and 6g is the limit for sodium chloride a.k.a. tablesalt.
Otherwise great video ❤
Thanks ! I was so confused
This is so interesting because I have chronic low blood pressure and can pass out because of my condition. My drs have me on a high sodium diet to lower my heart rate and prevent fainting.
I'm loving your videos ❤❤
I have hypOtension (low blood pressure) and my doctor tells me to eat all the salt i want. Yipee! One win in the game of life for me.
Although it can be scary when I'm unwell as it increases my likelihood of feinting, and also if it gets more serious than that, medicine has no way of quickly increasing blood pressure (unlike decreasing).
I am curious of this. Every time I visit doctors they get scared bcz I usually have low blood pressure. They ask me if I’m feeling well/unwell. Some people have told me that when our heart is good it doesn’t need to pump as hard?
I love your videos!!!
I would really appreciate if you guys would look into the book "The Salt Fix" by Dr. James DiNicolantonio because a lot of the information you present in this video directly contradicts what this book and his read of the literature says. My understanding *take with a grain of salt* is that salt could potentially increase blood pressure, but only nominally and in most cases we could eat multiple times the RDV for salt which is really on the low end of the spectrum for most people and that low-salt diets actually strain the body more than they lower blood pressure because as salt ingestion decreases, the body is forced to release hormones that retain salt and results in increases in blood renin, aldosterone, noradrenaline, adrenaline, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels. The book emphasizes that the real issue is the high amounts of added sugar that we tend to consume in the SAD but I think could be extrapolated to diets which contain large amounts of ultra-processed foods and high amounts of added sugars. Thoughts?
I think it's bang on man. I consume loads of salt and I have tracked my blood work, no increase or decrease. I exercise a lot and very rarely eat processed junk foods
The pandemic made me cook home meals more. I didn’t use much sodium to season my food. Now when I occasionally eat out, I find a lot of the food are salty.
Sugar is another additive I cut out from most of my foods, a lot of things are too sweet for me now.
The common issue in the US is most certainly eating out or eating microwavable, prepackaged food.
If people cooked at home, it is extremely difficult to have too much sodium.
I have used salt substitute 8+ years for home use. It's a potassium, sodium chloride and magnesium sulfate mix.
25% sodium.
I tried no salt substitutes. They ALL had a "tin" aftertaste. 😞
Great video! Very interesting. I'm going to have to show this to a lot of "salt is bad for you" people who think that 0 salt is healthy.
Towards the end of my first pregnancy I had to cut all added sodium from my diet because of my high blood pressure. I only got at little bit of sodium from the four slices of bread I ate daily. The potassium salt I was advised to use as a replacement tasted awful and not salty at all, so I threw it away. After watching your video it makes me wonder if it was such a good advice. My son was born two weeks early and dysmature, too small and light for the gestation period, but otherwise healthy. But apparently he had, or developed, a heart condition, because he suddenly died at 25.
I really enjoy the UA-cam community so much and how some show others so much love its feels great to be part as a viewer and a creator
Very educational
Ya'll posted this right when I sat down with some ramen bruh
I cut out adding my own salt, as well as all fast food. It was like 3 months in when I started to have real consequences. I drank so much water and worked out frequently, never replenishing. I was spacey and felt faint upon standing. My lips and fingers would turn blue. My doctor told me I’ve always had hypotension and should be ADDING salt if anything. I’d always eaten nearly 8oz of queso or a Big Mac every day so it was never a problem. Now I don’t eat meat, I put as much seasoning salt as I want on whatever I cook. Still don’t eat fast food. Creepy to see what was happening inside me when I was without sodium
A lot of people dont understand that if you have been doing some exercise and been sweating during that period.You will most likely feel dehydrated. The first thing you do is eat something really salty as when you sweat you sweat a shit ton of salt. As the water you will drink prior just wont go be processed. But eating salt then drinking will hydrate you.
I have a sodium deficiency because my kidneys waste sodium (I have kidney failure). My kidneys don’t hold on to the sodium they should and that obviously creates problems. Thank you for talking about what can happen if you don’t get enough salt!
Low salt diet gang, my reason is renal diet
I suffer from chronically low blood sodium levels. It can land me in the ICU if it gets bad. My mother has the same issue, so there’s probably some genetic component to it.
My doctor told me something he said he almost never says - "Don’t be afraid to salt your food." Doubling the amount of salt I put on food seems to help keep my sodium levels in the normal range. My mother was prescribed a bag of potato chips or pretzels every day. She loves Fritos so she eats a little bag of Fritos every afternoon - best medication ever!
My husband, on the other hand, had quadruple bypass surgery a few years ago and was told to maintain a low-sodium diet. It makes cooking a little tricky since I’m a season-as-you-go kind of cook. It’s very hard for me to make something that I think tastes good with very little added salt. Of course, he doesn’t think the low-sodium meals taste very good, either…
I have chronically low blood pressure and my doctors wanted to figure out why, so they put me on a high sodium diet for a little bit. I literally just bought one of the Jolly Apple salt licks I give my horses. They're sweet and salty, and are flavored like green apple (my favorite), peppermint, or carrot.
I'd chip bits off and suck on them like hard candy. It was like the ultimate sweet and salty snack for a weird kid like me. Never figured out why I have low blood pressure, though.
The stress connection so interesting bc I'm the only one in my family that genuinely does not like salt so I avoid it....and I'm also the most level headed in emergency/high stress situations.
If you don't have history of blood pressure problems then just add more sodium and potassium they're both great for you. I'm having around 3000-5000 mg of sodium a day depending on what I eat and 4000-6000mg of potassium.
I did an experience with myself standing a month without salt. This is the basis of indigenous diets because in the rainforest, they can't produce salt. I learned with them that this diet increases the espiritual connection and gives you more focus to achieve your objectives. So I tried and it was an incredible experience. I really did not notice none of this symptons, and I started an introspection state in my mind. It was really useful. Some years ago I knew a canadian men that did not ingest salt for years, and his health was perfect. I believe that with a healthy diet and rich in nutrients, you can live with minimum amounts of salt. I did not found any really good researchs in the subject, so I can't argument in scientific terms. Great content, thank you so much. Greetings from Brazil ❤
I've heard this as well, about indigenous people. Dr. Henry Bieler talks about it in his book "Food Is Your Best Medicine'. I've been following his advice to be salt-free for relief of mental health symptoms and to cleanse from the salt toxemia that caused anxiety and depression for years. When I 'cheat' and have salt, even just one meal, I always suffer for it with insomnia and anxiety. Salt is a powerful stimulant just like caffeine. Some are more sensitive than others.
Complete bs. You need salt to live. Not to mention the rainforest is full of sources of salt
I reduced my salt intake for a long time because its famous for being "unhealthy" and later discovered that I have low blood pressure and was accidentally making the problem worse. While its good to be aware of the effect of salt on blood pressure, I feel like "cut out salt" shouldn't be marketed as general health advice and should instead be specified as a way of managing high blood pressure - one size does not fit all when it comes to health and blanket advice with no nuance can be dangerous! I now put sea salt on almost all my food and cook with miso and soy sauce often to keep my sodium levels up, and have noticed a positive difference to my energy levels.
Great video, please do sugar next.
Thank you for the great information. My problem is that you don't mention that hypotension is just a great risk to your health and that in many countries the only treatment for hypotension is a higher intake of salt. For example in South Africa the only treatment for low blood pressure is given only in IV form and there is no other way to maintain your blood pressure daily expect for adding extra salt. I would rather risk hypertension, heart disease and all the other risks if it means that I am not going to faint in a potential unsafe environment. As much as the risk is involved, keeping myself safe is still a large priority even if it's means that I may have hypertension later as at least there is medication for it, where there is nothing available for hypotension. For those who are at risk of hypertension and heart disease, yes lower salt intake or stop it.
Most people that eat “too much salt” are more than likely doing so because of their highly processed food diet. When someone is physically active and eating mostly whole foods, it’s hard to over salt food when cooking, as we need optimal sodium (like you said) and is unpalatable. Great video! Thanks for the info as always
we also need potassium which is not in processed food
I started suffering from migraines and I’m convinced it was because of my low salt intake. I hate the way it tastes but it has significantly reduced my pain to almost nothing and my eyes don’t randomly twitch anymore 🙏🏼🙏🏼 electrolytes really are crucial for brain health
now I know why eating high-salt instant noodle cause my belly bloat and discomfort, but that noodle taste so good though
The problem is that modern diet is high and sodium, but low in potassium. These electrolytes need to be kept in a proper ratio. Potassium is mostly sourced from fruits, vegetables, etc. Modern diet also happens to be low in these so it's no surprise.
I’m Swedish it’s against my nature to quit salt thank you very much.
Same with beer. A lil bit has positive effects. Over consumption reverses any benefit.
I like the new animation style 😊
Awesome ❤
I quit salt in 2022 for the two years I had missing beats in my pulse and so many problems I was dying. Thank goodness I quit the doctor and started eating salt and enough meat to be "full" anytime I eat. In 6 months I am off all BP meds and diabetic meds are a thing of the past. I also dropped 70 pounds at the same time EAT SALT
yeah like i said this video is complete bullshit
So during the time when you quit salt you saw absolutely no positive impact in your body at all??
@@manikyum None what so ever no ssalt was going to cause a heart attack you need essential minerals to live
I’ve read ‘The Salt Fix’ which narrates all the lies we’ve been fed about salt. Taking salt in moderation does more harm than good. I tried higher salt dose for a few days and saw immediate results with my hypertension etc.
"the main culprit of health issues'' is sugar. Highly Inflammatory and spikes blood sugars. Problem with salt consumption is that it is not going down the muzzle with the appropriate proportions of potassium
Optimal salt is between 3000mg and 5000mg of sodium and potassium and 400mg of magnesium
I work in a greenhouse, and on nice days (sunny) I tend to consume 1 liter more than on other days (my typical daily drink intake is like 3l, but can get to over 4 with sun).
On those sunny days, I also do tend to grab myself a cup of vegetable soup broth. I vary the strength of the broth a bit with regards to how hot it is, but a colleague is actually saying that what I'm doing is bad.
But I listened to him once, laid down the salty broth for one day and just came into the convenience store straight out of work to get a package of tuc crackers. It's almost eery how specific a body's drive for salt can be.
Actually, for hundreds of years people consumed 50-100 grams of salt a day, because of using it for conservation of food. They did not have more heart disease
Thats sugar, what makes salt unhealthy. Salt itself is very healthy
You have probably confused the daily allowance of salt with the daily allowance of sodium. 3400 mg is certainly not the average daily salt intake in the US. It's much more than that.
I recently got a bloodtest and my Natrium level was slightly above the norm, but what got me a little worried was my potassium level, which was way too high. My doctor wasn't really explaining anything so i tried my best at research but couldn't find anything besides that drinking cola reduces the inner potassium level.
Do you maybe know what a high or potassium level means for your body, since this video was leaning into the potassium diets.
Btw i love your Videos, you guys cover many of my everyday questions!
For me, I need to eat more salt to avoid dysautonomia from my hypermobility disorder. My problem is my low blood pressure can lead to symptoms if I'm not careful. It's either eat more salt and/or drink more water and/or compression stockings. I think the salt is the least obtrusive.
If you cook for yourself, it is near impossible to have too much salt. Problem is way too many people are buying frozen, microwavable food that has an immense amount of salt/msg to make up for the crappy flavor, and fast food is basically 'salted' with msg almost exclusively.
So basically, start cooking for yourself. Even if you suck at it, it doesn't matter.
I have a kidney disorder where my kidneys dump salt and potassium way faster than they should, plus i am also on medication to help lower how much i sweat. I often cook for my family and after having a heart attack a few years ago my dad is on a low sodium diet so i rarely salt what i cook, just what i eat. My best weapon when i start to crave salt is pickles, and if i start getting muscle cramps, pickle juice. it is both delicious and very effective.
Salt is not food. The whole issue is so easy when you acknowledge this simple fact.
Salt is nothing like food.
Exactly and absolutely! This is what I have been trying to look for. How can a "dead" piece of powdered Rock be required by this supremely sophisticated body for its sustenance?! I think it's a generational thing passed on by generations and we developed a "taste" for salt to the extent we couldn't live without it.
I am prescribed 1 gram salt (sodium chloride) pills… I take one every morning and have been advised to extra salt all my foods. Multiple doctors have told me this. I have low blood pressure and salt helps me. That along with another blood pressure medication to raise my blood pressure. So, it’s not bad for everyone.
Careful with potassium supplementation. Excess potassium can cause cardiac problems
But make sure to keep plenty on you, you don't want to clip into a wall and rot away from potassium deficiency
Salt vs Sodium. Salt is sodium rich, but so are many plants and animal products that have salt that is converted to a more assimilable version. I personally only use a tiny bit of salt as needed and I never add it to foods. Try putting a pinch of salt and a 1/4 tsp natural baking soda in a large glass of water in the mornings before eating anything. Then do not add salt to your foods during your day (some things of course come with salt but try to use low sodium versions). You may find yourself feeling more relaxed and feeling healthier in general.
Big fan of salt here/thankfully a life-long 100/60 blood pressure 49y/o person.
In my experience, what happens is the opposite. Stress makes you feel the urge for salty food. When you're calm/life is 'normal', then the need goes away.
Quitting salt was unplesant but manageable. Quitting sugar was like cutting out my eye.
Doc told me to keep reducing my sodium intake. I got to 1000 mg per day and said i didnt want to go further. He insisted i was counting it wrong and ordered me to reduxe it further. I got it to 50 mg per day and felt unbelievably terrible. I told him this was unacceptable and he insisted i just needed to drop my sodium level further. He didnt believe my numbers, so I quit all medication and ramped up my sodium intake. My blood pressure dropped massively and i felt like a million dollars by comparison to before.
Im really good at quitting things cold turkey and i noticed i had a chip addiction so i decided to no eat chips for an entire month in February. Never had a muscle cramp in my entire life until that month and have now i consistently get them
Cause of my previous high salt diet i started to go deaf my doctor prescribed me some meds to reduce water and to regulate my blood and he said the most important thing is to stop consuming salt. 3 days later and i started to hear back well again. I am 23 by the way.
Listen to your body, but do NOT rely on "listen to your cravings." "Cravings" were shown to not be influenced by "what your body needs." It is psychological, not physical.
I’m and endurance athlete and I tend to eat a lot of salt because of loss of electrolytes through sweat. My blood pressure at the doctor’s office is always either normal mid range or on the lower side of normal. I’ve read that trained endurance athletes can have slightly lower blood pressure or completely normal, and eat much much more sodium that is recommended especially in really hot training days during high intensity. I am certain that I am at a very very low risk for cardiovascular issues because of salt intake for this reason. What are your thoughts on this?
I didn’t really learn how to cook until my 20s and as such, I rarely put salt on what I cooked and developed a salt deficiency, which is waking up in the middle of a night to urinate and urinating small amounts.
3:30 I manage to experience hyponatremia pretty easily since, for some time, I just eat boiled eggs, chicken, and broccoli without any seasoning or sauce. Just whatever was there after I boiled them. It was cheap and easy to prepare, so I went with it. I drink a lot of water to begin with, so I never felt any of the dehydration, but the nausea and vomiting hit me with surprise. Afterwards, I schedule some time to go to a restaurant or somewhere to eat out to add some things that I am missing out on my boiled eggs, chicken, and broccoli diet if I ever start to feel nauseous again.
Very interesting. I know I eat too much salt. I've reduced it recently but it's still high. Maybe I'll get the low sodium salt and use that if I want to add extra salt to my plate.
It's kinda crazy because Everytime I go to the hospital they give me a sodium drip. They say I need more salt
that's why on water fast it's highly recommended to consume salt and potassium chloride
ahh....old school ASAP Science videos after a looooong time. Nice i love this content
Just a small mistake to note: recommended sodium intake in the US is below 2300mg however this is not the same as salt intake (sodium chloride - containing two parts chlorine for every one part sodium) which would be around 6000mg. I assume then that the average American consumes 3400mg of sodium and therefore about 8500mg of salt per day, roughly 2-3 grams more than most countries recommend.
I have a pile of health problems and it's got me on the extreme high salt need end of the spectrum. I tried to go from my childhood diet of fast food, junk food and tv dinners to a "healthy" vegetarian diet in high school and it nearly killed me a couple times before we figured it out! I'm trying to raise my kids on better diets so I end up having to salt nearly everything and still can't keep my bp much more than 110/70 and my heart rate only passes 120bpm maybe twice a month. Also recently found out I have Chiari malformation (brain's too big) too. Like to think I'm the extreme example of what can happen when you raise a child on such a terrible diet but my eldest had similar from 2-7 and now can't digest half of the supermarket so....
I have a connective tissue disorder called hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and extra salt is actually required,along with fluids and supplements.
My mother had her first heart attack just days after a colonoscopy. We didn't know about hEDS and the need for sodium, and the "prep" (AKA poop soup goop) caused her great harm.
I think cardiologists should be better informed.
Many people feel helpless and unable to reduce their salt consumption. In fact, potassium chloride is not a good substitute for salt, as it is used to stop the heart during executions! You just have to eat less salt, and believe me, you will not miss it! If you look on the labels of food, you can see what has salt in it! Then you can make simple substitutions! Instead of canned vegetables, eat steamed vegetables. Instead of eating bread, cook pasta but don't put any salt in the water! I am not going to tell people what to do as there are many options.