In this article, I will tell the truth about the effect of salt on the human body and try to prove that the well-known opinion about the dangerous effects of salt on our health is a gross exaggeration.
Can salt cause kidney stones?
At the moment, there are many sources claiming that one of the dangers of dietary salt is that somehow it remains in our kidneys. In fact, this is not true, there are no deposits of sodium chloride in the kidneys, since it dissolves well in water. Kidney stones are formed from phosphates, cystines, oxalates, xatins, urates.
What happens to a person from an excess of salt?
Two centuries ago, scientists found that sea water has a similar composition to our blood plasma. And since all our cells are very similar in composition to it, it can be argued that salt is the most important component for us, on which we are highly dependent. For example, remember ordinary saline (NaCl), which is poured through droppers into a person in huge quantities. And nothing bad happens!
How does lack of salt affect our behavior?
Our body cannot produce salt on its own, respectively, if we do not eat it, then the shortage will manifest itself in the following signs:
- Fatigue
- Drowsiness
- Dizziness
- Change in appetite
- Nervousness
- Irritability
Your behavior will also become completely dependent on salt, because your body will try to compensate for this lack. For example, when there is not enough salt, the natives periodically eat their neighbors on the island, thus they not only make up for the lack of food, but also of salts.
The thing is that in our body there is a liquid salty environment – electrolytes that help conduct electricity in the body, they are the ones that make us eat something salty. In other words, when you want to eat a pickle, you are really just trying to compensate for the lack of electrolytes.
What happens if there is too much salt in the body?
With an increase in salts in the body, both the speed of blood flow and the amount of oxygen in the blood increase. And the pressure also rises until the vessels begin to burst.
Although, if a person is healthy, then nothing bad will happen from a temporary excess of salt. There are facts recorded by history when sailors were forced to drink exclusively sea water and they remained alive after that. Moreover, if you sterilize the water of the world’s oceans, then it can be administered intravenously, since its composition is very similar to blood, like saline (NaCL).
Is there any real evidence that excessive salt intake shortens life expectancy?
In open sources, you can see many scientists and the works they wrote on this topic, in addition, there are many statistics proving harm. But this is not about the dangers of salt, but about the consequences of too frequent use. And also about the presence of a relationship between salt intake and arterial hypertension.
Here are some examples of such works from famous scientists:
- Kempner W. Treatment of hypertensive vascular disease with rice diet. Am J Med. – 1948
- McCarron DA The dietary guideline for sodium: should we shake it up? Yes! Am J Clinic Nutr. — 2007
- Blackburn H. Primary prevention of high blood pressure. A population approach. Ann Clin Res. — 1985
- McMahon SW, Cutler JA, Neaton JD et al. Relationship of blood pressure to coronary and stroke morbidity and mortality in clinical trials and epidemiological studies. hypertension. — 1986
None of them give advice to give up salt intake, it is said that limiting sodium intake contributes to a significant decrease in blood pressure. And also the fact that a decrease in diastolic blood pressure by 2 mm Hg. Art. reduces the risk of death from stroke by 13%, and by 6 mm Hg. Art. – by as much as 43%
DA McCarron proved with his research that the salt norm is from 2.6 to 4.8 g / day.
Conclusion
As soon as there is a lack of electrolytes due to a lack of salt, which are necessary for the formation of electrochemical signals to neurons, your brain will force you to eat something salty, and you will not be able to prevent this, no matter how self-controlled you would not consider yourself. Although, it is possible that you can think that you are successfully sitting on a salt diet, but at the same time drink highly mineralized water. In this case, it will seem to you that you do not use salt, but in fact you regularly receive it with food, without noticing it. From a scientific point of view, the only point of such diets is to bring salt intake back to normal, and not abandon them, as many claim.
So, if you still manage not to consume salt at all, then in this case your brain will not work well, because. your neurons won’t be able to signal without salt. If you continue not to give your body the salt it needs, then you risk getting a cardiac arrest, which is likely to happen immediately after the first significant holidays due to a violation of the water-salt balance. Fortunately, in reality, it is almost impossible to completely abandon salts, but you can suffer from their lack.