Salt Intake Recommendations Shifting?

(Edith) #1

I was looking up the symptoms of water intoxication because my child drank too much water today. I came across this on the Healthline site. I thought it was quite interesting.

“The WHO suggests consuming 2,000 mg (2 grams) of sodium per day, and the American Heart Association advises a much lower intake of 1,500 mg (1.5 grams) per day (16Trusted Source, 17).

Today, Americans consume much more sodium than health authorities recommend — averaging about 3,400 mg (3.4 grams) daily (15Trusted Source).

However, these recommendations have been controversial, as people with normal blood pressure levels may not benefit from restricting their sodium intake (18Trusted Source, 19Trusted Source)

In fact, evidence to suggest that consuming less salt decreases heart disease risk in healthy people is limited. It may even be harmful (18Trusted Source)”

(Vic) #2

From reading around and internet sources I’ve come to understand that we need 3gr of sodium (6gr of salt) a day.

Less is an order of magnitude more damaging then to much, 1gr short is equally bad as 10gr to much.

Everything the WHO says is better taken with a grain of salt. They are not exactly known for being correct on any subject whatsoever. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(Edith) #3

It was the last sentence about there being little evidence that limiting salt is healthy that caught my eye. It is a good sign of more skepticism about government dietary recommendations.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

The PURE study, and a couple of others that came out around the same time, showed that the healthiest people had sodium intakes between four and six grams a day, which translates to 10-15 g/day of salt (sodium chloride).

The risk curve for most people is what they call “J-shaped,” in other words, the risk of poor health rises steeply as sodium intake decreases below 3-4 g/day, but rises less steeply for intake levels above 6 g/day.

The sweet spot for salt-sensitive hypertensives has the same sweet spot but is “U-shaped,” with the same steep increase in risk on either side of the sweet spot.

(Bob M) #5

The problem is that none of these take into account the real driver, insulin. It’s really high insulin (let’s ignore those “salt sensitive” people) that causes high blood pressure.

From Dr. Unwin in the UK:

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(Bob M) #6

Or I guess I could show my data for 8+ years:

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The labels are incorrect (they don’t move, but the data does). One thing I’ve noted is that fasting causes much lower blood pressures. Why? Insulin reduction. Nothing lowers insulin like (long term) fasting. So, that really low blood pressure was when I was fasting a TON: many, many 3.5-5.5 day fasts; many 36 hour fasts (used to fast 36 hours 2x/week). The higher blood pressure recently is due to a massive reduction in fasting.

#7

But it doesn’t mean we can reverse it and saying let’s eat this amount of salt and we will be healthier. I would horribly suffer from this much, I can’t even do that, I develop a sodium aversion in no time when I go near that amount, it’s awful. No idea what my body would do with it, I don’t say it would harm my physical body at all but mental health is quite important too.

Our ideal sodium intake must be quite individual, many factors affect it I am sure (if someone sweats a ton vs me who barely, that’s an important factor, for example).
I follow my taste, that seemed to work this far but I am unable to change my salt intake much anyway. I need a little salt in my food, not much, not zero (but all my items has sodium in them so it wouldn’t be zero). The carnivores in Fangs’ thread experiment with much or less salt (like, no added sodium at all), I just do whatever feels the tastiest and best. My salt need seems to drop lately but I still salt my food just way more cautiously.

#8

salt oh boy doing the salt dance now for me LOL

physical body only needs 115 mg for total survival but of course that is an ‘ideal body’ of course and how our needs per person will vary obviously.

I eat like 2 tablespoons of salt per day easily and probably more if I eat anything other than my 2 meals I add salt…my blood pressure is 110/70. I feel fab. I am wonderful but I ‘feel the bloaty’ in the body. I know point blank if I decrease salt my body will change, my life will advance to better and so on…but I love the darn stuff LOL I am an addict, no better truth be told than that.

When I cut back on salt I am irked but that is just taste and habit. When I cut back I ‘feel thinner’ and less bloaty’ and that ‘freeing lightness’ the body loves and I know it feels fab but I also know how I do on my big salt times so…

I think we all in the world overeat salt easily for the needs of the body.

but each of us have to do the individual dance on it as we see fit too

no one is gonna hit their needed perfect salt intake for the day or whatever ‘number we think we need’ cause life is not like that ya know…we are all so different, different life environments, meats processed differently on what we decide to eat for the day and SO MANY variables more that ‘the right number per day’ ain’t out there and won’t be anything a person will control to that perfect mg standard. Then pick an eating plan one chooses and salt intake on that plan from natural/processed food etc it throws out a big waiver on how salt is gonna down for all of us truly.

ok salt rant
I am ‘dealing with salt’ now and how I wanna deal with salt LOL

(Edith) #9

The carbs cause our kidneys to hold onto salt. That is why when we go low carb we need to up the sodium intake. I found that when I ate carbs, if I went out to eat and had really high sodium restaurant food, I was soooooo bloated, puffy, and thirsty after the meal.

When I first switched to keto, I believe I was eating a lot more salt, in fact, I needed to, but I never got that puffy/bloated feeling, hands swollen like I did after a high carb restaurant meal.

So, maybe the guidelines are correct for those eating the SAD. Because kidneys retain salt with carbs, sodium needs are less.

#10

SAD and just crap SAD…older days SAD was not highly processed to the limit totally fake crap no nutrition food…yea it stank as we added crap to the ‘more real menu’ etc. but NOW…food is not food truly.

I say all the time my mom eating her beloved crackers, it is just dead food point blank.

cereal is dead food yet they ‘fortify it’ with crap to make it ‘better’ than the dead food it is?

I tell ya LOL but I think how we function is so individual on who we are and our intake of salt as we need it and AT WHAT amt of change we put into our eating on plan. mind games, real body needs as we change thru what we are accomplishing? Alot of ifs ands and buts in there :slight_smile:

(Vic) #11

Oh no,

:open_mouth:

Its a beyond vegan burger… RUN :anguished:

How much salt is in a vegan burger compared to natural salt in a real burger?

(Edith) #12

Beyond Burger, 4 ounce patty - 390 mg Sodium
Number of ingredients - 20

70/30 Ground Beef, 4 ounce patty - 76 mg Sodium
Number of ingredients - 1

(Vic) #13

Oh dear,

Need to eat 66 burgers to get to daily average of 5gr of sodium.

Adding a pinch of salt seems like a good idea?

(Edith) #14

I belong to another carnivore group that believes we get all the sodium we need from the meat if we eat enough meat. There are many in the group who prove that (if they are telling the truth about their salt usage.)

I’ve always wondered if our meat eating ancestors drank the blood from the animals they hunted. Blood would be a good source of sodium. As you pointed out, to get enough sodium, if the 5grams/day is correct, we really couldn’t eat enough meat to get that much sodium. :woman_shrugging:

#15

I surely eat much more salt on my carbier days, it’s inevitable as I eat much more then. Except if I do a carby day with mostly sweets but even I don’t do that, I need my non-sweet food when I am hungry. So my sodium intake had to go lower when I went keto (especially that I had to eat more sweets for reasons and I never add salt to those) but I still stayed in my nice range, seemingly.
Of course there are many factors, I eat more sodium if I eat much more, for example. I am not good with stable energy intake. One day is 1000 kcal, the other is 2500… And my food is similarly salty during those days. These are exceptional days, though. If I could do EF again, my sodium intake would be zero in the first days (and I would stop afterwards anyway).

My sodium intake seems to go down and I am very curious if I ever reach the level where I won’t add salt to my meat. My eggs and meat already have sodium, of course but I double it (at least) when I add salt to it (it depends on the dish, I often need much more sodium than that but my eggs and roasts are very lightly salted and they are good).

(Vic) #16

Even if they did, most of the tribe would be efficient.

I love your post, it puts me in my place again, total darkness. Clueless.
If the members of the said group are deficient in salt they would be experiencing painfull cramps all day, it unlikely they are deficient.

So they are fine. How does the 5gr evidence fit in there?

Perhaps they are telling fairy tales, but why?

Do Carnivores even need the 5 gr? Why not?

My taste butts tell me I need it ?

(Bob M) #17

That’s most assuredly true. Or at least used the blood for eating somehow. Blood sausage, anyone?

I think the requirements for people on keto are going to be way different from people eating other diets. I tend to eat a lot of salt.

Now, why some carnivores don’t have to add salt, this I can’t figure out.

And I think it’ll vary by individual. When I was Atkins then high carb (for bike riding – thought I needed carbs), I sweat so much that I rusted my steel-framed bike. I’m still a fairly good “sweater”, even working out in my basement at 65F, I’ll sweat enough to use a towel, and that’s body weight “lifting”, not aerobics. (Been riding my mountain bike, with studded snow tires, on the road for my aerobics.)

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #18

That does seem to be the case, yes.

I find that if I don’t get enough salt, I am constipated and develop migraines. If I get too much, it also affects my digestion. Salting food to taste seems to keep me in the right range.

(Vic) #19

Can Human breast milk be a reference?

It has 0.015 gr sodium per 100ml

Lets say 5times 200ml meals for the baby is 0.15gr sodium a day.

At 20 times smaler gives a refference of 3gr sodium a day for an adult.

#20

I fear this is unreliable extrapolation as we need different things than a baby. A bit similar ones but not quite… Do we work similar enough regarding sodium? No idea. Blood is blood but I know little about these things…

I can’t test what happens then as I refuse to eat not salty enough food and that’s already ~4-5g salt, perfect for me. But when I went without sodium for 5 days, I got a bit dizzy. I wonder what would happen longer term (not with zero sodium, I don’t want to hurt myself and it’s impossible anyway for me but with little)… If my saltiness and energy need for satiation drops more (I eat very much now so my sodium intake is a tad higher than usual using the same food), I will measure and experiment.
If I go way over, I get salt aversion and a constant “burning”, nothing else. But that’s bad enough.