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Is salt really bad for your blood pressure? James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D., answers this and many other questions relating to salt in his book, \u201cThe Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong \u2014 and How Eating More Might Save Your Life.\u201d 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>\n
\u201c[P]atients \u2026 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 \u2026 symptoms of salt deficiency.<\/p>\n
What I ended up doing is kind of pushing back and telling my patients, \u2018You know, you really need to go to your doctor\u2019s office. Tell them these symptoms that you\u2019re having, and get your blood-sodium levels drawn because you might be deficient in salt.\u2019<\/p>\n
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.\u201d<\/p>\n
In some cases, the patients\u2019 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\u2019s actually hard to consume harmful amounts of sodium, it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n