Thoughts on Salt causing obesity

(Michael) #1

Interesting low carb video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0dMmL6E07Ww. Information on Fructose and glucose is interesting, but not new to me. The idea that salt could contribute to obesity was new, and interesting. What say you?

(Joey) #2

Fascinating - excellent presentation. I skimmed through and focused on the parts that I found most interesting, but the section on salt clearly requires a clarification (especially for those who are not bothering to watch your link)…

If I understood his point correctly, it is only salt IN COMBINATION with carbs that facilitates the fat storage mechanism … not salt in isolation.

Put differently, if you’re eating a standard American diet - high in carbs, fructose/sugar, and salt (most processed foods/drinks) - then the salt is further promoting obesity and related ailments from the carbohydrates. But if you remove the carbs/sugar, then there is nothing inherently unhealthy about salt.

On the contrary, since carbs serve to retain H2O, restricting carbs makes it all the more important to increase salt (electrolytes) in the diet to ensure salinity levels in the blood serum do not fall too low with the loss of water (= keto “flu”).

That’s my takeaway. Any others?

(Bob M) #3

So, correlation, not causation?

I personally think this is the same as PUFAs being the sole cause of obesity. It’s correlation, not causation.

(Joey) #4

I guess it’s a form of correlation. I interpreted it more as an actual effect of salt acting in combination with carbs, not just a random association. There’s an actual biochemical mechanism involved that he identified.

It’s more like salt serving as a catalyst in the presence of other existing (carb-related) conditions. Perhaps more like “confounding” variables?

(Bob M) #5

I’ll have to watch one of these days, which means I’ll never see it. No time to watch videos.

Based on your description, I doubt it’s true for a lot of instances I can think of: ice cream (low to no salt); beer; croissants; most desserts have very little salt; etc.

What if salt just makes things taste better? So that you’re more likely to eat more? And the carbs just go along for the ride?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

Salt is also the main ingredient that helps processed foods–especially low-fat processed foods–not taste like cardboard.

(Joey) #7

Think: french fries, pizza, Hot Pockets, Hungry Man TV dinners, Mac & Cheese … all loaded with carbs + salt.

(Lauren G) #8

what if you are not eating carbs & keeping them under 20gm but you are type 2 diabetic & keep turning your food into sugar & you are eating the extra salt & electrolytes? could the presence of sugar in my blood stream despite the diet of no carbs be causing the no weight loss because I am eating the salt?
GEEz I hope I make sense lol

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

I’m not sure what you are asking. Food does not “turn into sugar” under normal circumstances. Carbohydrate is not turned into sugar; it is sugar, specifically glucose. If you are keeping your carbohydrate intake under 20 g/day, then your serum glucose should be normal. The body generally wants only about 5 g circulating at any given time. Sugar in the sense of sucrose, also known as “table sugar,” should be avoided completely on a ketogenic diet.

If you are not vastly overeating protein, it will not automatically “turn into sugar,” either. The process of gluconeogenesis in the liver does use certain amino acids, that is true; but the process is pretty much demand-driven. (And not all amino acids can be converted into glucose, in any case.) But the body prefers to save most of the amino acids (protein) we eat for building and re-building tissues.

If you are a Type II diabetic, then your problem, on a ketogenic diet, is not likely to be glucose itself, but the insulin response to your glucose (i.e., carbohydrate) intake. If you are not taking in very much glucose, your average insulin level should drop to the point where fatty-acid metabolism is predominating. We call this “ketosis,” because when we switch from glucose metabolism to fatty-acid metabolism, the liver starts producing ketone bodies and releasing them into the blood stream.

The question of salt intake is unrelated, so far as I know. The healthiest sodium intake has been shown to be 4-6 g/day. Dr. Andrew Mente, one of the directors of the PURE study, has several lectures on YouTube about this. That level of sodium intake is equivalent to 10-15 g/day of sodium chloride, but it counts intake from all sources. If there is plenty of salt already in our food, our need for added salt is correspondingly less. Because of how the body treats salt, if we aren’t getting enough we are likely to be constipated; too much, and we are likely to have diarrhoea. The goal is to live in the sweet spot.

I do have one question: how are you testing your glucose level? What is the pattern throughout the day? Glucose, when stored as glycogen, promotes bloating, because it requires 3 or 4 water molecules to be stored along with it. That is why people often lose a considerable amount of poundage in the first few days of a ketogenic diet; they are lowering their glycogen stores to a normal level, and the water leaves along with the excess glucose.

(Joey) #10

@PaulL’s excellent detailed reply above provides great info about the processes “under the hood.” The short answer to your question is “no.”

It’s not easy to overdo salt - our taste buds resist it.

Getting too little salt, on the other hand, is both easy and not uncommon, especially with the fear of salt (NaCl-phobia?) we’ve infused into modern folklore stemming from (often erroneous) blood pressure concerns.

An excellent research survey book by Dr. DiNicolantonio (“The Salt Fix”) provides considerable insights on this topic, filled with reference to peer-reviewed scientific papers.

But as noted above, it’s more likely you’re not getting enough salt, rather than too much - most especially when carb-restricted.

For a T2D the best thing you can possibly do is to keep those dietary carbs to an absolute minimum and give your body time it needs to reduce your elevated post-prandial insulin excursions. As a T2 you have become insulin-resistant. That’s the fundamental issue you’re trying to reverse over time.

Yes, it will take time to reverse the resistance that past eating habits have produced. But it is remarkable how well a body can re-adjust if you treat it well. As noted, your body will produce an appropriate amount of glucose as actually needed to energize your metabolism … that is, once you stop feeding your metabolism all those dietary carbs that it never needed in the first place. :vulcan_salute:

(Lauren G) #11

I truly am keeping my carbs down to 20grams a day. I mainly get them from atkins shake i usually have once a day or from vegetables. I’ve been so strict, yet my blood sugar is still super HI in the AM forcing me to take insulin. then after that I eat protein primarily or green vegetables only throughout the day. By end of the day my BS then goes up to 160’s & I have to take insulin at night again to avoid super HI BS which usually goes up to mid 200s. it’s getting harder & harder to control these days(with the ups & downs) which is why i asked if the present sugar levels in the body w/ the additional salt intake combination could be making it difficult for weight to decrease. honestly my body isnt making sense which is mainly why i am not making sense lol sorry still learning.

#12

“Mitochondrial Toxin” was a little dramatic, high salt definitely screws me up, and I love my salt! I’ll slam 500mg / 1g before workouts and it’s awesome but if I keep salt at what half the keto’rs do I’d be a water balloon, inflamed and BP up. That was also the case when I did strict keto, I do TKD/CKD now, but the salt thing hasn’t changed for me. Keto’s diuretic effect wasn’t enough to keep it at bay.

(Joey) #13

You seem to be switching between serum glucose levels and body weight. Might be best to separate the two.

If you’re concerned that salt is elevating your glucose, try backing off on the salt content and seeing if your early morning and post-prandial glucose levels consistently fall from current readings. If so, that’s an n=1 observation worth delving into further.

The key caution, however, would be to closely monitor your resulting energy level and general sense of well-being … as these will take a hit (along with potential headaches) if you wind up failing to keep your electrolyte (= salts) levels sufficient for good function.

Body weight is a whole other topic.

Keep us posted please!