elev8 wellness
  • Elev8 Wellness
    • About
    • Meet the team
    • Classes >
      • Women's Wellness Series
      • Elev8 Yoga
      • Elev8 Dance
      • Elev8 Kids Programs >
        • Elev8kids Summer Camp
        • Toddler Classes
    • Our Studios >
      • Rent Our Studio
    • Elev8 Recipes
  • WellBlog
    • Elev8 Weekly Thoughts
  • Services
  • Virtual Coaching
  • Contact
    • Take a Tour

wellblog

Science: There Is No Reasonable Support for Restricting Dietary Sodium

12/8/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Every cell in the human body requires sodium and chloride for base functionality. So it stands to reason that we will improve biological function by restricting our salt intake, right? Yeah. It never made sense even when it allegedly ostensibly "made sense." Scientific American takes the subject to task here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt/. They weren't the first to do it.

Though your clinician may still default to this now-defunct and archaic tactic of salt-restriction recommendation, it was never really en vogue in the first place; and their own organization, the American Medical Association, has repeatedly found that moderating salt intake shows no conclusive evidence of reduced risk of death: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/899663. Of course, if your doctors don't read their own publication, they can't know that contemporary science and medicine do not support the high-salt/increased-risk-of-cardiac-event fictional hypothesis.

Like when kids learn Santa Claus isn't real, it's usually not enough to just hear that something is a made up fiction. We generally need to wrap our heads around how the fiction took hold as a truth in order to relinquish it back into the ether of mythologies and pseudosciences.

Essentially, this little ditty goes something like this:
Sodium is mostly held in a solution in the body. That solution requires fluid. More fluid means more blood. More blood means more possible pressure. Higher pressure has an association with increase health risk. Ergo, salt is evil.

There are a lot of question-begging pieces to this seemingly-reasonable series of logic statements. The first one, of course, is that there is no mention of insulin or inflammation. Without insulin or inflammation, massive piles of sodium cannot acquire more solution. That is, in an absence of insulin and inflammation, we can't retain sodium in the first place. So we never get to the increased blood volume proposal. Thus, trying to address systemic inflammation via sodium was never going to work in the first place. In fact, because it is an essential nutrient, the very people who need to recover their health the most probably need MORE sodium, not less. Thus they get a double hit on their cardiovascular risk when trying to listen to the old dogma.

Prepare for three shockers. One - if you drop carbohydrate intake, you drop insulin. Two - if you drop stress, you drop the need for increased blood volume. Three - if you drop weight... YOU ARE A SMALLER ANIMAL whose blood volume will never be as much as a bigger animal. As you do those three things consistently, inflammation is better controlled, and cardiovascular risk decreases or evaporates.

The other ENORMOUS question-begging within the salt-myth is that the addition or subtraction of dietary salt has ONLY immediate effects of blood pressure. That is, your underlying levels of inflammation and these other things you might've heard about before called organs prevent blood pressure from going up or down in perpetuity. You can't just keep adding salt and keep raising blood pressure. It doesn't work that way. Conversely, you can't just reduce salt and keep reducing blood pressure. You have this funny system called KIDNEY function. If the signal you send to your body is "I can't manage stress well; I am overweight; and I am inflamed," good luck trying to trick it into reducing risk of death by giving it less sodium - this sodium, need I remind you, which makes life possible in the first place.

Last but not least, like all other correlations in disease, we don't always know when correlation is causation or which direction the causal arrow points. Does it stand to reason that an otherwise healthy body magically creates high blood pressure; and that ONE SINGLE simple change leads to risk? Or is it more likely that a multifactorial unhealthy body is incurring damage that IS heart disease; and that disease is either causing increased blood pressure or your body is trying to address the disease via efforts which involve more blood volume? Of course, if the latter, not only will reducing sodium be futile, it may dramatically raise risk of death. That's to mention nothing of the many many many other systems in the body which of absolute necessity require copious sodium to function at all, let alone optimally.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Elev8 Wellness
    ​wellblog

    We strive to provide the latest articles and commentary on health, fitness, nutrition and vitality strategy.

    Archives

    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Active Memory
    Age
    Business
    Cancer
    Coaching
    Dementia
    Diet
    Dna
    Elev8 Wellness
    Family
    Fat
    Fish Oil
    Genetics
    Gut Health
    Health
    Jonathan Watters
    Ketosis
    Leadership
    Life
    Memory
    Muscle
    Nutrition
    Optimisim
    Parkinsons
    Pessimism
    Probiotics
    Sales
    Spatial Intelligence
    Strength Training
    Weight Loss
    Weight-loss
    Wellness

    RSS Feed

Picture

LIVE. AWESOME.

We offer the highest quality in personal  fitness, nutrition, and mindset coaching, helping you achieve your fitness, health, wellness and performance goals no matter the obstacle. With virtual online training and private, in-studio training we make it easier to reach your wellness goals safely.

​No more can't. No more not good enough. If you compete in a sport, let your mind no longer hold you back from being the greatest. If you don't, let your mind no longer hold you back from being the best version of you that you can be.

Sign-up for a Tour
Covid Screen Waiver
​Elev8 Waiver
Become an Elev8 Instructor
Space Rental
LOGIN / MEMBER REGISTER

6244 lyndale ave. s., minneapolis, mn 55423
[email protected]
612-440-6877

© 2021 Elev8 Wellness LLC.  All Rights Reserved.                                              site map  |  contribute  |                                                           SITE BY  Sproute Creative
Photos from benzado, frankieleon, hatcher10027, Sterling College, OakleyOriginals, rawpixel.com, quinn.anya, allispossible.org.uk, wuestenigel, jeffdjevdet, Brian Legate, jeffreyw, Ray Larabie, katerha, AgĂȘncia Brasil, TheBetterDay, A. M. D.
  • Elev8 Wellness
    • About
    • Meet the team
    • Classes >
      • Women's Wellness Series
      • Elev8 Yoga
      • Elev8 Dance
      • Elev8 Kids Programs >
        • Elev8kids Summer Camp
        • Toddler Classes
    • Our Studios >
      • Rent Our Studio
    • Elev8 Recipes
  • WellBlog
    • Elev8 Weekly Thoughts
  • Services
  • Virtual Coaching
  • Contact
    • Take a Tour