A Grain of Advice on Salt

You might think of “salt” as a dirty word – the stuff that spikes your blood pressure and increases your risk of heart disease.

But your heart, adrenals, liver and kidneys need salt to function, and you can’t digest food without it. What’s more, salt:

• Carries nutrients across cell membranes into your cell;
• Keeps calcium and other minerals soluble in your blood;
• Maintains your body’s balance of fluids;
• Regulates blood pressure.

In my 20 years as an alternative-health physician, I’ve found that most of my patients don’t need less salt. What they need is the right kind of salt, and more potassium. That’s because potassium helps to keep sodium levels in check and optimize blood pressure.

A study published in Kidney International found that potassium deficiencies increase blood pressure and induce salt sensitivity.1

Another study published in the Journal of Hypertension examined 150 Chinese men and women who ate diets high in salt and low in potassium. Half took a placebo, and the other half took a potassium supplement. After 12 weeks, the systolic blood pressure of the potassium group significantly decreased.2

But most Americans eat too much processed salt and don’t get nearly enough potassium. In fact, the FDA estimates that about 75 percent of our salt intake comes from processed foods and from table salt added to food.3

How does that affect you?

Table salt is processed at temperatures over 1,000 degrees. This processing changes its chemical structure and strips it of its natural nutrients. In addition, salt producers add anti-caking ingredients and bleach it.

By the time it gets to your dinner table, it’s mostly sodium and additives – no nutrients whatsoever.

A healthier kind of salt is sea salt. It’s formed by the evaporation of sea water in sunlight. As a result, it retains up to 82 vital trace minerals, including potassium, magnesium and calcium.

You can lower your blood pressure and improve your health by consuming the right kind of salt and boosting your potassium. Here’s a three-step plan you can use to help you get healthy salts and more potassium:

1. Know how much salt is in your food. Each teaspoon of salt is equal to 2,325 mg of sodium. Does that sound like a lot? Well the truth is, most processed foods have many times that amount. One packet of dry onion soup mix contains over 3,000 mg of sodium.

Even sweet foods which may seem like they would have no salt are packed with it. A homemade pie crust can have over 1,300 milligrams. Two small restaurant pancakes have more than 1,100 milligrams.

When you’re at the store buying food, you can go beyond reading the sodium content on the label. Processors have dozens of names they use instead of salt. Luckily, most of them do have sodium in the name so you’ll know what to avoid. But also look for ingredients like metabisulfite, erythorbate, propionate and guanylate.

2. Replace table salt with sea salt. A lot of the sea salt you find at grocery stores is really just processed table salt. Generally, if salt is white and pours easily, it’s probably processed. Natural sea salt is darker in color – because it’s dried in white and brown layers (and the brown layer has most of the nutrients).

Your safest bet is to buy sea salt from a health-food store. There are many kinds such as Mediterranean, Himalayan and Pacific and they all have slightly different tastes.

3. Boost your levels of potassium. The best food sources are orange-colored fruits and vegetables like apricots, cantaloupe, oranges, nectarines, peaches, sweet potatoes, and butternut and acorn squash. Other good sources are black and kidney beans, spinach, Swiss chard, artichokes, bananas, kiwi, fish, meat, poultry and milk.

These are just some of the excellent and unconventional high-blood-pressure remedies mentioned in a new report by Craig Anderson, The High Blood Pressure Remedy Report. It reveals the truth behind high blood pressure. It also shows you how to stop high blood pressure and cut your risk of heart attack and stroke – without worry, drugs, pain or wasted money.

Lower your blood pressure naturally today.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD