Is salt really bad for your blood pressure? James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D., answers this and many other questions relating to salt in his book, “The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong — and How Eating More Might Save Your Life.” DiNicolantonio is a doctor of pharmacy, and it was during his work as a community pharmacist that his interest in this culinary staple emerged.
“[P]atients … were put on this low-salt diet and were having all these symptoms like muscle fatigue, muscle spasms, cramps and heart palpitations. They said their doctors ordered them to not add salt to their food because they have high blood pressure. Yet they were suffering from all these new symptoms … symptoms of salt deficiency.
What I ended up doing is kind of pushing back and telling my patients, ‘You know, you really need to go to your doctor’s office. Tell them these symptoms that you’re having, and get your blood-sodium levels drawn because you might be deficient in salt.’
Sure enough, these people were severely dehydrated. They had low sodium levels in the blood. Within a few days of just upping their salt intake, all of these symptoms went away. Right there, I knew that this low salt advice was just not panning out in the real world.”
In some cases, the patients’ sodium levels were so low their doctors actually ended up reducing or eliminating their prescription for diuretics, which are commonly prescribed for high blood pressure and instructed them to start adding salt back to their food. This is an important lesson because, while it’s actually hard to consume harmful amounts of sodium, it’s easy to end up with too little. These real-world experiences prompted DiNicolantonio to write his book, in which he also provides a historical perspective about the use of salt.
https://www.healthnutnews.com/why-a-low-sodium-diet-might-wreck-your-health/