________
The Hidden Secrets of Salt
August 23, 2026 | By A Midwestern Doctor
Article at a glance:
• For 50 years, medicine has waged a misguided war against critical sources of health like salt and sunlight while avoiding discussing the real causes of diseases. Because of this, the dangers of salt are relentlessly focused on despite evidence not supporting them.
• In parallel, the extreme dangers of consuming too little salt are rarely discussed in the medical field—despite dangerously low sodium being one of the most common conditions seen in hospitalized patients, and chronically low sodium greatly increasing one's risk of dying.
• The war against salt originated from the belief salt raises blood pressure—despite the evidence showing it doesn't.
• Many of the foundational beliefs around high blood pressure are not supported by the existing data, leading to situations where patients are routinely medicated to blood pressures far below what is safe, significantly reducing their quality of life and increasing their risk of severe injuries or death.
• Salt restriction creates many similar complications to dangerously low blood pressures (e.g., fatigue, lightheadedness, erectile dysfunction). Because of this, many find their health and energy dramatically improves once they start consuming healthy salts.
• This article will cover some of the key dangers associated with salt restriction and strategies for locating the healthiest natural salts.
This newsletter exists to help others, and as a result, I frequently receive correspondences from individuals with pressing questions I want to answer. Unfortunately, due to how long each article takes to write (e.g., I’ve spent most of the last two weeks finishing up the last part of the DMSO neurological series as I believe it’s vital that astonishing data becomes widely accessible), I simply no longer have the time respond to most of those correspondences.
The best solution I’ve been able to come up with is to have monthly open threads where anyone can ask whatever is needed (e.g., any lingering questions from the previous month) and I would make a point to always reply to them (as having them all in a single place makes it easier to get to them and also possible for others with the same question to see that answer).
Each time I do a monthly thread, I try to tag it to a topic I’ve wanted to write about but I do not quite feel is enough for its own article. In this article, I will focus on one my major frustrations with the medical system, the half a century war against salt (which began in 1977 when a Senate Committee published dietary guidelines arguing for reduced sodium consumption despite the existing evidence not supporting this). Since then, like many other bad government policies, it has developed a nearly unstoppable inertia of its own.
Note: in the recent interview I did with Pierre Kory, one of the key points I hoped to illustrate was that on highly contentious issues, middle ground positions often exist which achieve most of what both side is seeking and help everyone—but as things become increasingly politically polarized, both sides dig in and the common sense solutions fade into the background creating an irresolvable quagmire. For example, currently, there is a highly polarizing debate occurring over what should happen to a mother with postpartum depression who murdered her three children, as a large number of people are adamant the death penalty must be imposed while many others have made it clear they deeply emphasize with her stress and hence want an insanity defense to prevail. Yet, few have mentioned the violent psychosis inappropriate psychiatric medications cause (which may have played a key role here) or that much better non-pharmaceutical options exist for treating postpartum depression (e.g., decades ago William Walsh showed postpartum depression and psychosis was often caused by a copper overload that was highly responsive to treatment).
Is Salt Bad For You?
Many people you ask, particularly those in the medical field will tell you salt is bad, and one of the most common pieces of health advice given both inside and outside of medicine is to eat less salt.
Over the years, I've heard two main arguments for why salt is bad for you.
First, salt raises blood pressure, and high blood pressure is deadly, so salt is too and should be avoided.
Second, with individuals who have heart failure, eating too many salty foods will create exacerbations of their condition, and as a result, after holidays where people eat those foods (e.g., the 4th of July) more heart failure patients will be admitted to hospitals for heart failure exacerbations.
Note: excessive sodium causes these exacerbations because an excess amount of fluid accumulates in the body (e.g., because the weakened heart can't move enough blood to the kidneys to eliminate it), which then overloads other parts of the body (e.g., causing swelling and edema, which, if in the lungs, can be life threatening).
Because of these two things, many in the medical field assume that salt must be bad for you and hence strongly urge patients to avoid it (to the point you often see an elderly patient who loves her salt be aggressively pushed into abandoning it). Unfortunately, the logic behind those two arguments is much less solid than it initially appears.
Blood Pressure
Many things in medicine resulted from what approach to patient care was the most profitable, not the most helpful. In turn, since recurring revenue is a foundational principle of successful businesses, rather than cure patients, a key goal in medicine often ends up being to have as many patients as possible be on lifelong prescriptions.
In most cases, the drugs that are developed and approved have real value for specific situations, but those situations are not enough to cover the exorbitant cost it requires to get a drug to market. As a result, once drugs are approved, the industry will gradually come up with reasons to give them to more and more people (e.g., by relabeling a vast swathe of normal feeling as "depression"). As such, things quickly arrive at the point where many of the industry's customers experience significantly greater harm than benefit from the pharmaceutical (e.g., while they harm the majority of users and providing minimal benefit to most patients, SSRI antidepressants are also very helpful for a subset of people who take them).
The best solution I’ve been able to come up with is to have monthly open threads where anyone can ask whatever is needed (e.g., any lingering questions from the previous month) and I would make a point to always reply to them (as having them all in a single place makes it easier to get to them and also possible for others with the same question to see that answer).
Each time I do a monthly thread, I try to tag it to a topic I’ve wanted to write about but I do not quite feel is enough for its own article. In this article, I will focus on one my major frustrations with the medical system, the half a century war against salt (which began in 1977 when a Senate Committee published dietary guidelines arguing for reduced sodium consumption despite the existing evidence not supporting this). Since then, like many other bad government policies, it has developed a nearly unstoppable inertia of its own.
Note: in the recent interview I did with Pierre Kory, one of the key points I hoped to illustrate was that on highly contentious issues, middle ground positions often exist which achieve most of what both side is seeking and help everyone—but as things become increasingly politically polarized, both sides dig in and the common sense solutions fade into the background creating an irresolvable quagmire. For example, currently, there is a highly polarizing debate occurring over what should happen to a mother with postpartum depression who murdered her three children, as a large number of people are adamant the death penalty must be imposed while many others have made it clear they deeply emphasize with her stress and hence want an insanity defense to prevail. Yet, few have mentioned the violent psychosis inappropriate psychiatric medications cause (which may have played a key role here) or that much better non-pharmaceutical options exist for treating postpartum depression (e.g., decades ago William Walsh showed postpartum depression and psychosis was often caused by a copper overload that was highly responsive to treatment).
Is Salt Bad For You?
Many people you ask, particularly those in the medical field will tell you salt is bad, and one of the most common pieces of health advice given both inside and outside of medicine is to eat less salt.
Over the years, I've heard two main arguments for why salt is bad for you.
First, salt raises blood pressure, and high blood pressure is deadly, so salt is too and should be avoided.
Second, with individuals who have heart failure, eating too many salty foods will create exacerbations of their condition, and as a result, after holidays where people eat those foods (e.g., the 4th of July) more heart failure patients will be admitted to hospitals for heart failure exacerbations.
Note: excessive sodium causes these exacerbations because an excess amount of fluid accumulates in the body (e.g., because the weakened heart can't move enough blood to the kidneys to eliminate it), which then overloads other parts of the body (e.g., causing swelling and edema, which, if in the lungs, can be life threatening).
Because of these two things, many in the medical field assume that salt must be bad for you and hence strongly urge patients to avoid it (to the point you often see an elderly patient who loves her salt be aggressively pushed into abandoning it). Unfortunately, the logic behind those two arguments is much less solid than it initially appears.
Blood Pressure
Many things in medicine resulted from what approach to patient care was the most profitable, not the most helpful. In turn, since recurring revenue is a foundational principle of successful businesses, rather than cure patients, a key goal in medicine often ends up being to have as many patients as possible be on lifelong prescriptions.
In most cases, the drugs that are developed and approved have real value for specific situations, but those situations are not enough to cover the exorbitant cost it requires to get a drug to market. As a result, once drugs are approved, the industry will gradually come up with reasons to give them to more and more people (e.g., by relabeling a vast swathe of normal feeling as "depression"). As such, things quickly arrive at the point where many of the industry's customers experience significantly greater harm than benefit from the pharmaceutical (e.g., while they harm the majority of users and providing minimal benefit to most patients, SSRI antidepressants are also very helpful for a subset of people who take them).
One classic way drug markets are expanded is by creating a drug that treats a number, asserting that the number has to be within a certain range for someone to be healthy, and then once that is enshrined, narrow and narrow the acceptable range so less and less people are "healthy" and hence need the drug (e.g., this happened with cholesterol once statins were invented). Likewise, this characterizes the history of blood pressure management:
Please go to A Midwestern Doctor to continue reading.
Extensive research archive on the importance and history of salt:
Audio: The Importance of Salt.
Possible cancer link: salt raises body alkalinity, which combats cancer
Frank McManus on Salt in Food
Salt in Food. Myths About Salt. Claims that Salt is Harmful and Dangerous are Wrong.
Salt in this when SHTF scenario is vital:
The 20 Pioneer Foods That Will Become Your Only Lifeline When SHTF and the Shelves Bleed Empty
The 20 Pioneer Foods That Will Become Your Only Lifeline When SHTF and the Shelves Bleed Empty
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.