According to this dr salt deficiency causes your kidneys and adrenals to produce large amounts of the hormones renin and aldosterone which raises blood pressure.
Severe salt restriction can raise blood pressure and blood cholestral and even cause a heart attack.
He states people on low sodium diet have a much higher death rate.
Salt Sensitive People
Those who develope high blood pressure when they take in extra salt, have kidneys that permit a protein called albumin to pass through them.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin M. D. CBS Radio News
-------------------- PARASITES/WORMS ARE NOW RECOGNIZED AS THE NUMBER 1 CO-INFECTION IN LYME DISEASE BY ILADS* Posts: 6418 | From philadelphia pa | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged |
Lymeorsomething
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 16359
Editor's note: Nationally recognized nutrition expert Marion Nestle answers readers' questions in Food Matters, written exclusively for The Chronicle. E-mail your questions to food@sfchronicle .com, with "Marion Nestle" in the subject line.
Q: My doctor just ordered me to cut back on salt. I've been taking medication for high blood pressure for several years, and this is a new doctor who thought mine needed to come down further but wanted me to adjust my diet, not just raise my dose. Do you have any helpful tips?
A: Follow your doctor's advice. Less salt in your diet will make your medicine work better. Less salt in everyone's diet would reduce the risk of high blood pressure and, therefore, the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease.
But, alas, this is easier said than done. Unless you cook all your own food, avoid eating out, and never buy foods that come in jars, cans or boxes, be prepared for a major challenge.
Nearly 80 percent of the salt in American diets is already added to what you eat by food companies. Another 10 percent of salt occurs naturally in foods. This means that you only control 10 percent with the salt shaker.
Food companies love salt. It encourages eaters to consume more. Salt brings out the flavor of natural foods, yet disguises the artificial taste of processed foods. It is cheap and extends shelf life. It makes you want to drink more. And it binds water and makes foods weigh more; you pay more for this weight. Health risks
Unfortunately for food companies, just about every scientific group that has examined the evidence says salt raises disease risks. The more salt consumed, the higher the risk, and not just for adults. Kidney stones now show up in children as young as 5 or 6 years old, in part because kids' foods are so salty.
Salt is 40 percent sodium and 60 percent chloride. We need both minerals, but dietary advice focuses on sodium. Experts say everyone should consume no more than 2,300 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day - equivalent to 1 teaspoon of salt. On food labels, the FDA uses 2,400 mg as an upper limit and defines a low-salt product as one containing no more than 5 percent of that amount, or 120 mg sodium per serving.
But, just try to find a low-sodium product among the vast array of frozen dinners, cereals, cheeses, soups, sauces and condiments on supermarket shelves, let alone in the pretzel and chip aisles. If you are trying to cut down on salt, you must avoid such items or eat them in tiny amounts.
Faced with insistent demands to lower the salt, food companies employ three strategies. Strategy No. 1 is to try to reduce sodium. Manufacturers say they can't do this easily. Unless products are salty enough - reaching what the industry calls the "bliss point" - people will not buy them.
This is because we are accustomed to a high-salt diet. It takes a few weeks to adjust to a lowered salt intake, at which point "normal" food will taste unpleasantly salty. Food companies can only lower the salt a few milligrams at a time, and none of them wants to go first. Makers of sweet foods have a similar problem, which is why they add artificial sweeteners to low-sugar products.
Strategy No. 2 is to spin the science. Nutrition research is always subject to interpretation, but scientific debates over the role of salt in health are nothing short of ferocious. While scientists agree that salt has something to do with blood pressure, they argue intensely about how much and for whom. The salt industry lobbies hard to convince you that salt raises disease risk in only a small percentage of the population; that even modest reductions in salt intake could be dangerous to health; and that scientists disagree so strongly about the evidence that restrictive advice is unwarranted.
Despite the spin, expert committees invariably agree that everyone would be better off eating less salt on the grounds that prevention is preferable to treatment, and not everyone can afford health care.
Strategy No. 3 is to pre-empt "eat less" messages by establishing generous criteria for "better-for-you" food choices. Witness the new industry-sponsored Smart Choices program, which identifies products that meet specified nutrition standards (see smartchoicesprogram.com). Less salt vs. low salt
This label will replace the separate self-endorsements of PepsiCo (Smart Spot) and Kraft (Sensible Solutions), for example, supposedly making it easier for people to select healthier options.
But watch out for the sodium. The Smart Choices cut-off point is a generous 480 mg per serving - 20 percent of the recommended daily limit, four times the level considered low-sodium, and equivalent to 1.2 grams of salt per serving. This level may be lower, but it is not low; it allows salty soups to qualify. And, most soup cans or packages contain at least two servings, which doubles the salt intake for anyone who eats the whole thing. Read the labels
Federal agencies have just appointed a committee to develop Dietary Guidelines for 2010, and Americans have just elected a new president who promises reforms in many areas of public life. Let your representatives know that you want food companies to use less salt so you have real choices when following your doctor's advice. In the meantime, you are stuck with reading food labels and avoiding foods high in sodium, even those that the industry considers to be healthier options.
As for the 10 percent you do control: The best advice is to start working toward a lower salt threshold. Taste before you add, and use soy and other salty sauces sparingly. After a short time eating less salt, you won't even miss it.
Q: I'm curious about salt, and about iodine, and about the current food fashion for kosher salt and assorted "gourmet" and sea salts. If I convert my kitchen to kosher salt, and use sea salt on the table, will I get enough iodine in my diet?
A: Not necessarily. You need iodine to make enough thyroid hormone to avoid goiter and mental retardation. Water and foods from coastal areas and those with rich topsoils contain plenty of iodine, but desert and mountain areas often do not. Americans usually get enough iodine because we eat from a geographically diverse food supply. If you eat exclusively from local Bay Area sources, you should be fine, but inland locavores should use iodized salt.
Iodization of salt is voluntary, and companies rarely use iodized salt in prepared or processed foods. Iodine in sea salt varies considerably. Kosher salt is not iodized, although it is nice to cook with because the larger crystals mean you use less of it. Still, using iodized salt at least some of the time makes good sense.
Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard professor in the department of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. Her newest book, "Pet Food Politics" (University of California Press, 2008), is about the 2007 pet food recall. She is also the author of "Food Politics," "Safe Food" and "What to Eat." E-mail her at [email protected], and read her previous columns at sfgate.com/food.
--- Even kids are suffering now with kidney stones from too much salt in their diet:
By LAURIE TARKAN NEW YORK TIMES
Published: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 4:20 a.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 6:21 a.m.
To the great surprise of parents, kidney stones, once considered a disorder of middle age, are now showing up in children as young as 5 or 6.
While there are no reliable data on the number of cases, pediatric urologists and nephrologists across the country say they are seeing a steep rise in young patients. Some hospitals have opened pediatric kidney stone clinics.
"The older doctors would say in the '70s and '80s, they'd see a kid with a stone once every few months," said Dr. Caleb Nelson, a urology instructor at Harvard Medical School who is co-director of the new kidney stone center at Children's Hospital Boston. "Now we see kids once a week or less."
Dr. John Pope IV, an associate professor of urologic surgery and pediatrics at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, said, "When we tell parents, most say they've never heard of a kid with a kidney stone and think something is terribly wrong with their child."
In China recently, many children who drank milk tainted with melamine -- a toxic chemical illegally added to watered-down milk to inflate the protein count -- developed kidney stones.
The increase in the United States is attributed to a host of factors, including a food additive that is both legal and ubiquitous: salt.
Though most of the research on kidney stones comes from adult studies, experts believe it can be applied to children. Those studies have found that dietary factors are the leading cause of kidney stones, which are crystallizations of several substances in the urine. Stones form when these substances become too concentrated.
Forty to 65 percent of kidney stones are formed when oxalate, a byproduct of certain foods, binds to calcium in the urine. (Other common types include calcium phosphate stones and uric acid stones.) And the two biggest risk factors for this binding process are not drinking enough fluids and eating too much salt; both increase the amount of calcium and oxalate in the urine.
Excess salt has to be excreted through the kidneys, but salt binds to calcium on its way out, creating a greater concentration of calcium in the urine and the kidneys.
"What we've really seen is an increase in the salt load in children's diet," said Dr. Bruce Slaughenhoupt, co-director of pediatric urology and of the pediatric kidney stone clinic at the University of Wisconsin. He and other experts mentioned not just salty chips and french fries, but also processed foods like sandwich meats, canned soups, packaged meals and even sports drinks like Gatorade, which are so popular among schoolchildren they are now sold in child-friendly juice boxes.
Children also tend not to drink enough water. "They don't want to go to the bathroom at school, they don't have time, so they drink less," said Dr. Alicia Neu, medical director of pediatric nephrology and the pediatric stone clinic at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore. Instead, they are likely to drink only once they're thirsty -- but that may be too little, too late, especially for children who play sports or are just active.
"Drinking more water is the most important step in the prevention of kidney stones," Neu said.
The incidence of kidney stones in adults has also been rising, especially in women, and experts say they see more adults in their 20s and 30s with stones; in the past, it was more common in adults in their 40s and 50s.
"It's no longer a middle-aged disease," Nelson said. "Most of us suspect what we're seeing in children is the spillover of the overall increase in the whole population."
The median age of children with stones is about 10.
Many experts say the rise in obesity is contributing to kidney stones in children as well as adults. But not all stone centers are seeing overweight children, and having a healthy weight does not preclude kidney stones. "Of the school-age and adolescent kids we've seen, most of them appear to be reasonably fit, active kids," Nelson said. "We're not seeing a parade of overweight Nintendo players."
Slaughenhoupt has seen more overweight children at his clinic.
"We haven't compared our data yet," he said, "but my sense is that children with stones are bigger, and some of them are morbidly obese."
Pope, in Nashville, agreed. His hospital lies in the so-called stone belt, a swath of Southern states with a higher incidence of kidney stones, and he said doctors there saw two to three new pediatric cases a week.
"There's no question in my mind that it is largely dietary and directly related to the childhood obesity epidemic," he said.
Fifty to 60 percent of children with kidney stones have a family history of them. "If you have a family history, it's important to recognize your kids are at risk at some point in their life," Nelson said. "That means instilling lifelong habits of good hydration, balanced diet, and avoiding processed high-salt, high-fat foods."
There is also evidence that sucrose, found in sodas, can increase risk of stones, as can high-protein weight-loss diets, which are growing in popularity among teenagers.
A common misconception is that people with kidney stones should avoid calcium. In fact, dairy products have been shown to reduce the risk of stones, because the dietary calcium binds with oxalate before it is absorbed by the body, preventing it from getting into the kidneys.
Children with kidney stones can experience severe pain in their side or stomach when a stone is passing through the narrow ureter through which urine travels from the kidneys to the bladder.
Younger children may have a more vague pain or stomachache, making the condition harder to diagnose. Children may feel sick to their stomach, and often there is blood in the urine.
One Saturday last February, 11-year-old Tessa Cesario of Frederick, Md., began having back pains. An aspiring ballerina who dances en pointe five nights a week, she was used to occasional aches and strains. But this one was so intense that her parents took her to the doctor.
The pediatrician ordered an X-ray, and when he phoned with the results, her parents were astonished.
"I was afraid he was calling to say she pulled something and wouldn't be able to dance," said her mother, Theresa Cesario.
Instead, they were told that Tessa had a kidney stone.
"I thought older men get kidney stones, not kids," Cesario said.
The treatment for kidney stones is similar in children and adults. Doctors try to let the stone pass, but if it is too large, if it blocks the flow of urine or if there is a sign of infection, it is removed through one of two types of minimally invasive surgery.
Shock-wave lithotripsy is a noninvasive procedure that uses high-energy sound waves to blast the stones into fragments that are then more easily passed. In ureteroscopy, an endoscope is inserted through the ureter to retrieve or obliterate the stone.
Tessa Cesario is taking a wait-and-see approach. Her stone is not budging, so her parents are putting off surgery until they can work it into her dance schedule. In the meantime, she has vastly reduced her salt intake by cutting back on sandwich meats, processed soups and chips.
And, her mother said, "she drinks a ton more water."
GiGi
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 259
posted
Low blood pressure is equally as dangerous. Good salt with all the minerals intact (not Mortons) will raise it as it increases blood volume.
There is no black or white, I believe, when it comes to medicine and people.
Take care.
Posts: 9834 | From Washington State | Registered: Oct 2000
| IP: Logged |
glm1111
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 16556
posted
Hi GiGi,
I use Real Salt or any good sea salt with all the minerals. I agree, I think table salt is very detrimental because they remove all the minerals that our bodies need.
I used to have very low blood pressure, but since adding salt to my intake, I am doing much better.
It is also a natural bacteriocide. After all, we are 75% saline,
Gael
-------------------- PARASITES/WORMS ARE NOW RECOGNIZED AS THE NUMBER 1 CO-INFECTION IN LYME DISEASE BY ILADS* Posts: 6418 | From philadelphia pa | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged |
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic