Salt Will Kill You

A certain amount of sodium is needed. Not having enough salt in the food put my wife in the hospital for several days. She was acting real funny like a drunk and does not drink. Now she takes a salt pill every day to keep the sodium level up and blood tests show the sodium level slightly on the low side of normal but still in the normal range.

lørdag den 5. februar 2022 kl. 22.05.49 UTC+1 skrev Mike Monett:

only if you get large amounts or have other health issues. The body needs sodium for function

"Published in The Lancet, the study found that low salt, or sodium, intake may raise the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death, compared with an average salt intake."

But there are multiple conflicting studies.

A banana a day is good for potassium, and reduces cramps.

Potassium isn't a panacea. It can interfere with the normal function of your heart. It's also contraindicated for folks with kidney problems. E.g., replacing a sodium-based water softener with one driven by potassium just changes the source of the problem.

Sodium is a problem because so many processed foods *add* sodium to your diet. A slice of white bread may contain 150mg of sodium. So, 300mg for a sandwich. Not counting any sodium in the condiments applied or the contents of the sandwich. The RDA for sodium is ~2300mg -- about a teaspoon! FOR THE WHOLE DAY!

Salted popcorn? Ha! Add salt to ANY of your foods? Tsk tsk...

Here (hard water), the sodium from the water softener is equivalent to ~100 mg of sodium PER QUART of water consumed. Given the amount of water you are expected to consume in a day (~16C), that's 400mg before you EAT anything.

If you're not carefully reading labels, you're likely getting too much (of whatever).

Your wife has a disease that probably causes her to excrete sodium too quickly rather than retain some of it. My aunt had that and instead of giving her sodium, they restricted her fluids. She was basically hooked on cokes, so probably her anguish was as much about wanting the caffeine as much as anything. Hyponatremia is the name for the condition and it has many causes.

Hypernatremia is too much sodium in the blood. It is typically caused by eating too much salt or not drinking enough water. I'm sure once you've had a stroke, you don't want to mess around with your blood pressure, but mostly this can be managed by diet control. In addition to drinking fluids, eating food high in potassium helps to eliminate sodium from the body, greens, greens, beans, nuts, dairy foods. Pretty much anything that isn't processed is low in sodium. So eat less processed food and drink plenty of water... as if we haven't heard that a million times.

Yes, but it needs more potassium which many people don't consume enough of. It is very unusual for anyone in modern society to be eating too little sodium.

Eating bananas is good for potassium, but it will only help with cramps if they are caused by low potassium. There are many bodily imbalances that will cause cramps. One is excessive or unusual exercise.

My wife had cramps in her feet at night. After taking salt pills they quit and her sodium level is normal now.

It's pretty hard to get too little sodium eating food you don't prepare yourself. Or just eating anything, pretty much...I have high BP that's probably in part genetic and I've been eating a low-sodium diet for several years now and I'm just early 40s, it does make in-person shopping more difficult because most pre-packaged stuff has a stupid amount.

Most of those TV dinners have absurd amounts, I don't always have time to prepare every meal but there's only a small number you get get at a regular (not e.g. Whole Foods) grocery that have under 600 mg which is what I try for when I buy that stuff.

After a while food that's too high in salt starts to become off-putting, I can't eat regular potato chips or fried chicken or fast-food burgers much anymore, too much salt! Can't taste anything but salt, ruins the food.

Shopping online the local chain lets you sort by most nutritional categories including sodium when doing a pick-up which is very helpful. Unfortunately they don't let you filter by multiple items like Digi-key or Mouser which would be even better...

It's important to remember that your concern is with *sodium*, not just "salt". E.g., baking soda/powder are similar culprits and contribute to the total "sodium" in a product (e.g., baked goods).

Soups are lousy with salt. Many canned goods! Ditto cheeses.

Pizza, anyone? :<

Yeah, there was a period when I avoided salt. I happened to drop by a burger place for a "quick bite". And, returned the burgers claiming they had been prepared improperly (cuz they tasted like SALT burgers).

It is interesting to see just how much "salt" is present in the foods that we regularly eat! (salt == preservative, flavor enhancer)

You can (re)train your palate to enjoy other "flavorings" instead of salt. But, it's not done overnight. (and easy to "relapse"!)

I've found that you just have to learn from experience.

Added sugar (in varied forms) is also a problem. Especially in "sauces" (flavorings).

Of course, many of the "alternatives" have their own problems.

A good guideline is The Cardiologists' Diet: If it tastes good, spit it out!

I think that is very highly overstated. I often use canned tomatoes in my cooking. Half a can is my typical serving which has about 250 mg of sodium or one eighth of the total daily recommended amount. I often use that in place of tomato sauce on pasta or rice.

It is easy to look at labels. No need to use general rules that may not be very accurate for any given food.

Then I make up for the low sodium in my meals by eating popcorn with lots of salt.

Strokes are no joke.

Sodium chloride hard to avoid. Just don't add more.

RL

Note that there are other risk factors that affect the likelihood of a stroke. And, addressing them has other benefits!

You really don't "need" to suck on that cancer-stick. (my god, I think smokes are $100/carton?? why don't you just take up Cocaine, instead!)

It's not THAT hard to get off your ass and move those muscles. (no, you don't need a gym membership or a fancy piece of equipment that you'll have to *dust* regularly)

And I'm sure you can afford to buy smaller clothes (i.e., lose weight so you don't need to buy from Omar-the-Tent-Maker).

And, adjust the *types* of foodstuffs from which you derive your *necessary* calories and other substances. (yeah, potato chips are tastier than broccoli... but, you can find other ways to augment the broccoli so it's tastier still!)

These are all relatively easy things to do -- just not always "fun" or "profitable-in-the-short-term".

E.g., the idea of exercising just for the sake of exercising is anathema to me; there aren't enough hours in the day, as it is, for me to do the things that I *want* to do... why "waste" one of them?

OTOH, it is relatively easy for me to rationalize walking the

2+ miles to the post office instead of *driving*. In that case, the 'cost" of the exercise is reduced -- it would take me 10 minutes to drive that distance and just about 30 to walk it. So, I receive the benefits of 60 minutes of exercise (there and back) for an investment of 40 minutes of my time! (and the car sees that much less wear-and-tear from those short jaunts).

Repeat for library, grocery store, FedEX store, etc.

Bodies specifically want salt, and probably/mostly self-regulate about the amount. But bodies don't seem to specifically have a taste for potassium.

Maybe because sodium salt is generally available, but potassium salts aren't. So if we have a specific regulatory mechanism for potassium, it would show in in craving for potassium-rich foods.

Our natural tastes can be fooled by expert chemists who design cheap junk food.

I feel the same about exercise for the sake of exercise, don't have the patience. I used to make lengthy walks with a camera hunting for wildlife (well almost exclusively birds), chasing something makes it OK. (

)

For nearly 4 years now I am cycling instead, used to cycle once or twice a week downtown to visit (35-40 km round trip). But I also did cycle for the sake of cycling alone a few times. When the weather allows it I cycle to shop for food, some 10km round trip.

Anyway, in this line of thought let me share a discovery I think I made. Some 10 years ago I noticed my head worked markedly better if I had been rope bouncing for say 20 minutes on the terrace here before I started the day. It took me years to notice it was just the rope bouncing, no other exercise I did had this effect. And quite recently I stumbled across the same effect in the kitchen.... while making the morning coffee (2 cups espresso). There are two pauses of 1-2 minutes each while the water heats up in the maker; I was just bouncing because I felt cold (my morning shower has been with cold water for 30+ years and the kitchen is cold during the winter). And there it was, the effect was there again. It looks like it is not about the exercise but about the shakeup the head gets.... Some of the bugs inside it must be falling in place I suppose :).

I'm more a 'hope I don't smell too bad before I'm planted', kind of guy.

Given fate's wicked sense of humor, you've got to be very careful what you wish for. Sniff . . .sniff. . . .

RL

Exactly. It's as if you're constantly thinking "I could be doing _____, instead!"

At least if you're cooking, watching TV, eating, taking a sh*t, etc. you can do some other task that more fully uses your mind. When walking, I can *think* about things but can't *read* anything (the relative motion of my surroundings is distracting)

Ah, well... I'd put "bird watching" in a similar category as exercise! :>

SWMBO enjoys watching the birds in the back yard as they seem to have a preference for our yard over most of the neighbors.

"Come look at this..."

<shrug>

That's just a tiny bit farther than my walking limit. I find 4-5 miles to be about right -- 60-75 minutes of exercise per day.

"Rope bouncing"? "Jumping/skipping rope"?

If you shake your head and folks NEAR you say "what's that noise"...

I prefer closing my eyes so I'm not distracted by other things in my visual field (I'm a "visual thinker"; if my eyes are open, I won't "see" what's in front of me in deference to the thought process that is monopolizing my conscious mind)

It is the chasing to find some bird and get close enough to take a decent photo, not the watching which did it for me.

This is plenty if you do it on a daily basis of course. Or even every other day.

Yes, I thought I knew the phrase but apparently I have just made it up...

Or may be not so near me, must ask the neighbours...

But the effect seems real, it is worth a try.

I find it easier to do it daily as "skipping a day" too easily morphs into "skipping a FEW days", etc.

But, if I don't need to travel to the post office, grocer, library, etc. (i.e., "long jaunts"), I break the activity into smaller chunks that I can get past with minimal distraction.

E.g., after harvesting the lemons, I made a dozen 10 minute trips through the neighborhood to deliver the fruit -- one bag at a time.

You can, also, deliberately increase the amount of walking that you need to do to complete a task. E.g., parking far from the entrance of a store so you have to walk farther to get to it. Or, walking up the stairs instead of taking the elevator (though I find I am winded after five flights if wearing a mask -- it just doesn't let enough air in to keep up with my climb rate)

I rely on the cadence in music instead of anything "loose" inside! I've noticed a very definite difference between the types of music I listen to when coming up with a solution vs. the music when I am *implementing* a solution. And, different preferences for

*how* that is consumed -- headphones vs. open-air (the latter being a problem after SWMBO has retired for the evening!)