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WisconsinChristianNews.com
Volume 25, Issue 7
Salt In the Wound?
By Dr. David Lange, Genesis Primary Care November/December 2024 “But Doc! It’s
this isn’t all that bad for us, but potassium chloride is a nasty tasting salt so the amount of sub- stitution is limited.
see it that way as in the end, the mineral content will be the same and there is no chance for all of the stuff that gets dumped into the ocean going into your diet.
normal range. If you have a weak heart, you are not able to keep up with fluid removal. This may be just swollen legs, but it could be swollen lungs. Salt is one of those substances that seem to deaden the sense of saltiness. The more you use, the more that you seem to need in order to taste it. Our sense of taste is really a nasal function from structures called the olfac- tory bulbs. The taste buds can only sense sweet, sour, bitter and salt. Depending on your viewpoint, there is a fifth sense called “sa- vory.” Think tomato or MSG. As we age or have more injuries to our olfactory bulbs, we start to have a decrease in our ability to taste our food. The senses of the tongue do not seem to diminish over time. That is good, but bad. This often results in salting food in order for it to have some flavor. It would be just as effective to add lemon, broccoli or sugar to your food as it is salt, but some foods really only pair with salt. Being mindful of the amount of salt added is most prudent. Salt, by itself, isn’t the enemy. Like most things in medicine, it is all about exposure. Be careful of the exposure and you should be fine. Watch out for amazing claims for salt as well. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Look for a different way to spice up your diet. There is more out there to pop your taste buds. GenesisPrimaryCare.com Please see the display ad on Page 20 of this issue of Wisconsin Christian News).
Himalayan Pink Sea Salt. The package says that it is good for me.” “I know, but the way you are using it, the only per- son this is good for is me.” Salt. This has been used prob- ably since the beginning of time for food preservation. We ab- solutely have to have some in our diet to live. I think one of the biggest arguments in health care over the decades has been about how much salt is needed. That question won’t be answered here. I just hope to educate a bit about the subject. Sorry if it is early in the morn- ing to get your chemistry geek on. Salt is a substance that has a positive and negative charged ion that stick together, because oppo- sites attract. This charge is what allows the body to absorb many of the nutrients that we eat. Table salt is sodium chloride (sodium is the positive charged ion and chlo- ride is the negative). But there are many salts out there. Salt is produced a couple of dif- ferent ways. The standard box of salt has typically been through a process to purify it to sodium chloride and add in some sodium or potassium iodide. The source of the salt doesn’t matter too much because of the purification process. Low salt products on the market typically substitute potas- sium chloride for some of the sodium. We need potassium so
A newish food trend has been to use sea salt. But are there any
There are studies that look at
health benefits to this? Depends. Sea salt is not purified. This means that there are other min- erals in there, hence the different colors of salts. Some are from re- portedly ancient sea beds found deep beneath the surface. Be- cause, I guess, the ancient world was less polluted than our cur- rent world, this source of salt is supposed to be beneficial to us. Most sea salt is either taken from a salt lake or sea water is flooded into shallow ponds and the water is allowed to evaporate and then the dry stuff is collected. I have to believe that something is done to clean this stuff up for human consumption because otherwise that salt source sounds simply disgusting. Then I guess I have to ask, is this really better for us? If the issue is that the added miner- als are better for us, how much is in the typical salt serving? Why is the “natural” product better than simply adding those minerals to a clean and purified salt? I don’t
the amount of salt consumed and its health consequences. Maybe you have heard about the DASH diet. DASH is short for Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension. Lowering sodium in the diet and eating more fruits and vegetables showed a nice lowering of the blood pressure. I have also seen studies that have showed no dif- ference in blood pressure. I still favor a lower sodium diet as the foods are more natural. The closer to the garden you can eat, the better off you are. And that does not mean dragging the pic- nic table further out into the backyard. Do I have a recom- mended number? Not really. Less is just better than more. The other group of patients that should be careful are those with heart failure. The body has a fairly narrow range of normal sodium. If this gets too high, hor- mones start up to retain water to dilute that sodium back into the
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