When it comes to lowering your blood pressure, all you hear is salt, salt, salt...
The Heart Association, many doctors and the various public health nannies portray "sodium"
as the enemy of heart health – something to be feared and avoided. Too much salt causes high blood pressure, they say, and increases your risk of heart attack
and stroke.
It probably won't surprise you to learn that the subject is a lot more nuanced. In fact, the mainstream advice about salt might not just be wrong... it could be "dead" wrong!
A few years ago, the New
England Journal of Medicine published a study which examined the relationship between a person's salt intake and their risk of fatal heart disease.
What the researchers discovered is that people who consumed less than 3,000 mg of sodium per day had a 27% higher risk of death by heart attack or stroke than those who consumed between 3,000 and 6,000 mg per day (the average American consumes
3,400 daily).
In other words...
The "heart-healthy" recommendations given by government health organizations and the American Heart Association could
potentially INCREASE your risk of fatal heart disease!
The truth is that your body needs sodium to function properly. This vital substance helps carry nutrients into cells, transmits nerve impulses, influences the contraction and relaxation of muscles, impacts hormones, helps to regulate blood pressure and volume, and much more.
And, of course, sodium is not the only dietary mineral involved in these functions.
Potassium also plays a big role... and research shows that most people should be far more concerned about a lack of potassium than too much sodium.
The average American consumes only about half the recommended amount of potassium. And most experts believe the RDA for this essential mineral is already too low. That means most of us don't get nearly the amount of potassium we need!
Potassium is essential for nerve transmission. It helps regulate the fluid balance in your body. It is critical for both voluntary and
involuntary muscle function. It assists protein and carbohydrate metabolism. It also helps to regulate your blood pressure.
But even more important than consuming the right amount of sodium and potassium is the relative ratio between the two. The ideal ratio is five times as much potassium as sodium in your diet. This ratio is so important it has been called the "vitality ratio."
One study, published in the Archives of Internal
Medicine looked at the effects of sodium and potassium on our health. The researchers analyzed over 12,000 adults and followed up for nearly 15 years.
They found that a high ratio of sodium to potassium is associated with heart disease. It's also associated with a significant increase in death from all causes.
The American Medical Association (AMA) found the results to be so compelling that they urged the government to issue new public health recommendations.
According to the AMA, these recommendations "should emphasize the simultaneous reduction in sodium and increase in potassium intake."
Researchers from Johns Hopkins performed another study. They looked at the results of 33 different trials, each one related to potassium and blood pressure. They found that optimal potassium levels are clearly associated with healthy blood pressure levels and that optimizing potassium levels worked nearly as well as drugs for normalizing blood pressure (but without the side-effects).
They
also found that those with normal blood pressure levels experienced a benefit. However, the effect was much greater for those who were hypertensive, especially for those who were considered "salt-sensitive."
Another review of studies appeared in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension. This study also showed a link between potassium
and a healthy heart. Those who got the most potassium in their diets had the healthiest blood pressure levels and the lowest risk of heart disease.
So How Can You Improve Your "Vitality Ratio"?
Below are five easy and delicious ways
to bring your intake of the sodium and potassium into a proper healthy balance:
- Eliminate processed foods. Many processed foods contain huge amounts of sodium and very little potassium. The more processed foods you eat, the higher your ratio of sodium to potassium (and the worse your
health) will be.
- Eat more whole, natural foods. Most meat (unprocessed), fruits and vegetables have an ideal sodium to potassium ratio. Veggies especially rich in potassium include dark leafy greens (spinach, kale, Swiss chard), Brussels sprouts, broccoli, squash,
beans, lentils, and mushrooms.
- Forget bananas. Eat avocados! Despite what banana growers want you to believe, bananas are not the best source of potassium. A typical banana gives you 420 mg of potassium. That means you would have to eat more than 10 bananas daily (that's
more than 140 grams of sugar!) to get the amount of potassium recommended by the Institute of Medicine.
Eat avocados instead. They provide more than two times the potassium (and none of the sugar)!
- Season with herbs and spices. By adding flavorful herbs and
spices to your foods, you won't need to add as much salt to your food.
- Add REAL salt to your diet. The producers of commercial "table salt" remove all the beneficial trace minerals (and sell them to industry). Then they add bleaching agents and other chemicals to keep the
salt from caking. Avoid table salt!
Instead, use a mineral rich primordial salt that contains a wide variety of trace minerals (including potassium). One of our favorite salts in the world is made from mineral-rich brine pumped from Artesian wells
in Mexico.
Before you sprinkle another grain of salt on your next meal, I encourage you to learn
the deadly truth behind iodized, kosher, and commercial sea salt... and discover a source of primordial salt, with more than 88 trace minerals...
Taking the Pressure Off Your Health Concerns,
Kelley Herring
Healing Gourmet
