How does salt restriction lead to heart dis-ease & fear based reactionary thinking?

Salt restriction equals chronic adrenal emergency response.

Hydration equals salt plus water as water follows salt.

Dehydration: think sticky instead of slick: clotting, adhesions, brain plaque …

The body thrives when fully hydrated. Consider a baby versus the elderly - the marked change is hydration. The body is self healing in a hydrated state.

The intravenous saline drip saves lives because it rehydrates.
Bush medicine: Murphy Drip or salt water enema rehydrates via the bowel mucosa.

The kidneys are designed to function with an abundance of salt. Prior to the 1900s it was common to preserve food with salt. Removing excess salt is a kidney’s natural function.

What happens when salt is restricted?

Dehydration, hyponatremia and low salt are all names for the same condition. ACUTE: life threatening CHRONIC: dis-ease causing

THE WILT LIST

• S-Stupor/coma

• A-Anorexia, Nausea & Vomiting (food fussiness)

• L-Lethargy (tiredness, exhaustion and irritability, tantrums)

• T-Tendon reflexes decreased (falls, clumsy, dropping things)

• L-Limp muscles (general weakness)

• O-Orthostatic hypotension (dizzy on rising)

• S-Seizures/headache (forgetfulness, brain fog, confusion/migraines)

• S-Stomach cramping (muscle twitching, ticks, restless legs and cramping) Source

Increased Heart Rate should be added to the list of indicators for dehydration.

Dehydration leads to low blood volume and increases the heart’s work load as it compensates by raising the heart rate. Dizzy on rising indicates orthostatic hypotension or low blood pressure.

The brain is extremely sensitive to dehydration, think about this next time you have a headache and/or problems with recall. If dehydration gets worse: brain fog, confusion and coma follow.

Dementia and Alzhemers’s are likely the result of chronic brain dehydration. Woman are over represented in cognitive decline. Women have higher demands for salt to maintain their reproductive system.

Salting your food aids digestion. The stomach requires chloride to make adequate stomach acid so digestion can be completed in the stomach. If there is low stomach acid, food ferments in the intestines, causing gas to push upwards and this causes heart burn/indigestion. Fat digestion: salt is carefully conserved in the bile salt cycle.

Mucosal salt acts like a humidifier. The lung mucosa uses salt to add moisture to the air so it reaches 100% humidity at the alveoli. Respiratory symptoms occur after an incident of dehydration. The mucosa over produces as it rehydrates the respiratory tract and restores its function. Cold dry air holds the least moisture. This is why respiratory dis-ease is seasonal. Time spent in cold dry air outside or time inside in heated dry air, both have potential to dehydrate.

Decreased ability to adapt to a challenging environment: heat or cold and stress.

Salt increases tolerance for heat and cold and stress.

Take a salted water bottle on your next excursion in the heat and notice the difference. Wim Hoff method: ice plunges - do you need more salt to tolerate the cold?

Normal lab values

look at the values for Sodium and Chloride vs everything else with the unit mmol/L

Do you see the difference in quantities?

Sodium to Potassium (in the upper range) 145:5.2 reduces to 27:1

Sodium to Magnesium (in the upper range) 145:1.1 reduces to 132:1

Do you see how restriction of Sodium Chloride will upset hydration quicker than the other electrolytes?

Chronic dehydration results in chronic adrenal response.

The adrenals respond to low salt by producing and releasing all their adrenal cortical hormones not just aldosterone.

This changes the kidneys state of ease (releasing sodium) to dis-ease (retaining sodium). The adrenals take charge because they are perpetually rescuing the body from dehydration because of salt restriction.

Analogy: Salt restriction requires driving a car in reverse. The car is built to drive forwards but with limited salt the adrenals disable that function.

When the adrenals are relied upon for survival in salt restriction, they have two choices: adrenal fatigue or adrenal hyperplasia (grow larger). The adrenals are built like booster rockets, they are meant to fire up, rescue the body from dehydration and quietly restore their hormonal stocks, ready to respond to the next emergency. In salt restriction they have an ongoing role.

Adrenal fatigue: stress becomes intolerable. These people avoid stressful situations. They will take the easy path to avoid confrontation. Any stress translates to dreadful tiredness.

Adrenal hyperplasia: Aldosterone: blood pressure rises for no good reason and salt retention is very efficient - these are the salt sensitives. Cortisol: Blood sugar rises. Adrenaline: Anxiety rises. Sex hormones are suppressed. These people are always anxious for no good reason so any molehill becomes a mountain. They react from hindbrain / fear based thinking and can not access the frontal cortex to defend themselves from fear based propaganda.

Restrict salt and this state is maintained chronically.

Kidneys become dis-eased

Lungs become dis-eased (they have large salt requirements)

Adrenals become either exhausted or enlarged

Blood sugar levels become diabetic

Anxiety becomes panic attacks

Suppressed sex hormones becomes infertility

Salt restriction causes acute and chronic dehydration and maintains the production of adrenal cortical hormones that in turn cause a malady of chronic dis-eases and fear based reactionary thinking.

Put SALT front and centre because water follows salt.

Remember salt stores are raided in states of dehydration / low salt. For example: muscles, joint capsules, bones, eyes, gastrointestinal tract, respiratory mucosa ... this is why at a certain age your eyes don’t bounce back to shape from near to far sightedness. The elderly shrink as their spinal column loses salt and water. Hip and knee replacements have become common.

Alcohol dehydrates

The hangover is an acute expression of salt loss. Salt plus water is the remedy.

A word of caution:

Salt increases blood pressure by optimising hydration. When rehydrating with salt water the pendulum can swing forth and blood pressure can go above normal levels before it swings back. Add salt gently giving your body time to adjust. If you have been living in a dry desert, don’t cause a flood.

If you are a salt sensitive, your adrenals have enlarged, so they will need time to adjust. They adapted to their salt restricted environment so I expect they can also decrease in size as salt becomes plentiful and their role returns to emergencies.

Think of your favourite salty foods.

Chicken soup with salt to taste is the classic restorative food. Salt plus gelatine.

You are welcome to comment or ask a question. I acknowledge and/or reply.

REFERENCES and EXCERPTS that add to the narrative I’m exploring.

James Dinicolantonio’s book The Salt Fix changed my hydration paradigm and completely removed the salt demons from my life. James, a cardiac pharmacologist, noticed the ubiquitous research demonising salt, did so without good evidence. Dietary salt can increase blood pressure by 4-5 points. Visiting a Dr can raise blood pressure 4-5pts. Blood pressure and heart rate both respond to challenges.

Then James mentions the exceptions: the salt sensitives.

These people can spike their blood pressure significantly with the addition of salt because their kidneys are chronically dis-eased. The adrenal cortical hormones and in particular aldosterone cause the kidneys to retain salt.

High dietary Na⁺ intake in Chronic Kidney Disease contributes to Na⁺ retention by aldosterone Aldosterone and CKD

It is always good to notice and study the exceptions. My ‘ah ha’ moment - I realised aldosterone was not produced as a ‘normal’ salt regulator but as part of an emergency response to hyponatremia. And of course because the adrenals are responding to an emergency, they produce all their hormones not just aldosterone.

This helped me understand the adrenals relationship to the kidneys. Even the size of the adrenals in contrast to the kidneys made sense. They are like the reverse gear in a car, great for getting out of tight spots.

Historical data: blood pressure managed by salt restriction

(1975 to 2015) The number of people with raised blood pressure in the world has increased by 90% during these four decades… source:

(1990 to 2015) Globally, 3.5 billion adults now have non-optimal systolic BP levels (that is, greater than 110–115 mmHg) and 874 million adults have systolic BP greater than or equal to 140 mmHg. Thus, approximately one in four adults has hypertension¹⁶. Between 1990 and 2015 there was a 43% increase in the total global number of healthy life years lost to non-optimal BP… Source:

Salt restriction activates the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System (RAAS) to retain sodium.

In 1971, Coghlan et al. observed that the impact of sodium deprivation on renin and aldosterone appeared weaker in hypertensive individuals compared to normotensives²⁷. In 1972, Williams et al. found that an increase in aldosterone secondary to reduced sodium intake consistently correlated with an increase in renin and/or angiotensin II²⁸. In the same year, a cross-sectional study involving 219 participants demonstrated an inverse association between plasma renin and aldosterone levels and sodium intake (measured by 24-h urine sodium excretion, a proxy for sodium intake)²⁹. Three years later, Oliver et al. revealed a sustained increase in urinary aldosterone excretion in a population with lifelong low sodium intake³⁰. Since 1980, numerous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have substantiated the rise in renin and aldosterone levels associated with reduced sodium intake³¹. Source:

With a high salt intake the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System is suppressed and sodium is excreted. Source

Evidence that chronic hyponatremia is a potent stimulus to aldosterone secretion. Source

Big pHARMa’s hypertensive cocktail is based around suppressing the effects of aldosterone / RAAS - created by restricting salt.

First-line antihypertensive medications include ACE inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers (also known as sartans), dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers, and thiazide diuretics106.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers. Among medications that inhibit components of the RAAS, ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers are considered first line antihypertensives, whereas other antihypertensive medications targeting RAAS, including direct renin inhibitors and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, are usually considered reserve medications because there is less clinical trial evidence supporting their use as first line antihypertensive therapy. Source

Hyponatremia is the most common clinical electrolyte disorder. Once thought to be asymptomatic in response to adaptation by the brain, recent evidence suggests that chronic hyponatremia may be linked to attention deficits, gait disturbances, risk of falls, and cognitive impairments. Such neurologic defects are associated with a reduction in quality of life and may be a significant cause of mortality. However, because underlying diseases such as adrenal insufficiency, heart failure, liver cirrhosis, and cancer may also affect brain function, the contribution of hyponatremia alone to neurologic manifestations and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Source

Murphy Drip or Proctolysis - Bush medicine
AT THE beginning of the 20th century, entrepreneurial American surgeon John Benjamin Murphy devised a drip method of introducing saline solution through the rectum in the treatment of patients with peritonitis (Rutkow 2001). Since then, this infusion technique, known as proctoclysis, or the 'Murphy drip', has been used to rehydrate and deliver medication in solution.

With the advent of the first world war, medical developments were required urgently for the management of battlefield injuries. Concerned that the blood volume of soldiers recovering from blood loss was returning to normal too slowly, Robertson and Buck (1919) concluded that, if fluids were introduced through the rectal mucosa, the circulating blood volume could be increased.

The researchers first practised proctoclysis in soldiers who had previously received blood transfusions but still had low blood volumes. These soldiers were given large quantities of water orally and of salt solution rectally as soon as possible after they had sustained injuries, with the results that their blood circulating volume and pressure rose.

These changes were often apparent after only two or three hours of treatment, with the patient retaining up to 500ml of saline solution per hour (Robertson and Buck 1919). It is thought that strong coffee was introduced in this method during the second world war for the treatment of shock.

The use of rectal fluid infusion was popular when intravenous therapy techniques were less advanced, and declined as nurses and doctors became skilled at cannulation and using intravenous equipment (Foex et al 2007). Proctoclysis is still used today, however, for example in Chinese medicine, to introduce herbal medication for the treatment of prostatitis (Chen and Hu 2006).Source

Salt and cortisol

We observed that increasing dietary sodium intake substantially increased urinary cortisol excretion and mildly decreased total circulating serum cortisol, when compared with dietary sodium restriction. Source

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