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Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

nytimes.com

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Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#71

Post by Broken_Hippo »

SepUltra wrote: post #56
dottrap wrote: post #11

This needs to be paired with Scientific American: It's time to end the war on salt https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-t...

Actually, the Scientific American article is wrong. This space study also concludes that salt is harmful. Now possibly in more ways than was previously known.

Not really. The articles talk about different sorts of effects of salt: The Scientific American paper is mainly about the link between heart disease and salt, which was basically scientifically shaky. The article we are discussing talks about different sorts of things that happen when we eat a lot of salt. It could be bad, sure, but it could be good when talking of weight loss. We'll see with more research.

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#72

Post by mistermann »

mtreis86 wrote: post #60
mistermann wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drink tons of water and I get lots of cramps, presumably from electrolyte shortage. Is there any way of knowing what the right amount of salt is to be consuming?

Rule of tongue - if it tastes salty its too much salt. Take a half full water bottle. Add some salt. See if it is salty yet, then keep adding until it is just barely salty. Then fill the bottle to the top. If you taste salt you added too much. Note that with kcl, you start with less water, more like a quarter of the bottle, because the salty flavor is much weaker.

This is with every bottle you drink? So basically once I figure out the amount, I should put that much in every time I get a fresh glass?

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#73

Post by kpil »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #71
SepUltra wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the Scientific American article is wrong. This space study also concludes that salt is harmful. Now possibly in more ways than was previously known.

Not really. The articles talk about different sorts of effects of salt: The Scientific American paper is mainly about the link between heart disease and salt, which was basically scientifically shaky. The article we are discussing talks about different sorts of things that happen when we eat a lot of salt. It could be bad, sure, but it could be good when talking of weight loss. We'll see with more research.

It's been known to be shaky for at least 20 years, but that have not stopped various government health organisations campaigning for a reduced salt intake.

I can give them that it's a complex issue, there are probably no adverse effects and that reducing the risk for stroke even on the margin could be beneficial - such as for those that have a generic invariant that makes them very sensitive to salt levels.

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#74

Post by Mz »

bdcravens wrote: post #48
Mz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is probably a lot more complicated than that. CF does a great many things to the body. It is an inflammatory condition and I have seen multiple articles linking diabetes and inflammation. People with CF tend to be seriously underweight and I have recently seen articles that link inadequate muscle protein to insulin resistance. There is no doubt more than that going on, those are just a couple of things tha…

I have CF. About 2009 (age 32) I developed diabetes (commonly known as CFRD, CF related diabetes). CF patients early on have the ducts in their pancreas blocked from producing digestive enzymes, causing low weight. We take digestive enzyme supplements to (inefficiently) counter this. (I realize you have CF too - laying out background for the non-CF reader) My understanding is that the eventual diabetes is caused by g…

I genuinely think it is a lot more complicated than that. My blood sugar is more stable than it has ever been and I have gotten off digestive enzymes. I wasn't doing anything to specifically try to fix my blood sugar issues. I was doing things like trying to get inflammation and infection under control based on the success of therapies like daily ibuprofen. I read up on that, inferred that if you can reduce inflammation, you can be less symptomatic, and used a dietary and lifestyle approach to do that. I did take ibuprofen daily for something like 5 or 6 years, but was eventually able to successfully control symptoms such that I no longer needed it. Somewhere along the way, I happened to see articles about the link between diabetes and inflammation. Inflammation and infection go hand in hand, so I think very likely infection plays a role in the collapse of pancreatic function in pwcf.

The low weight is also from the gut being all kinds of out of whack and just not absorbing nutrients. There are things that can be done to improve gut function. The gut is about 70 percent of your immune system, so I think efforts to repair the gut lead to many different good things, including better nutritional status and a more functional immune system.

Though the degree to which you can correct these problems no doubt will be influenced by which specific alleles you have, I think there is a lot of room for improvement for most people with CF. Maybe it won't make much difference if you have one of the variations where the CFTR just basically doesn't work at all.

I used to jokingly talk about "Pale Skin Disorder" as a metaphor for special needs in my kids. It works well as a metaphor for what I mean here too. If you have pale skin (low melanin production) and are easily sun burned, there are things you can do to protect against sunburn. You aren't doomed to simply be sunburned to the point of peeling all the time. But if you are an albino and totally lack melanin, it is a whole different ball game.

So, if you have a form of CF that is the equivalent of albinism where the CFTR simply does nothing or is outright absent, instead of one of the many variations where it has one of a number of different types of impairments, my assumption is that would be less responsive to dietary and lifestyle changes. Though I don't actually know.

Anyway, my apologies if I have offended. I rarely engage pwcf in discussion anymore as it tends to go bad places. Thank you for commenting.

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#75

Post by Mz »

Steer wrote: post #12
Mz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is probably a lot more complicated than that. CF does a great many things to the body. It is an inflammatory condition and I have seen multiple articles linking diabetes and inflammation. People with CF tend to be seriously underweight and I have recently seen articles that link inadequate muscle protein to insulin resistance. There is no doubt more than that going on, those are just a couple of things tha…

It would be nice of you to provide some sources for your claims. I don't know if you are right or not, but at least providing links to the articles you are referring to would be appreciated.

Diabetes and inflammation is actually easily googled, but here is a respectable source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1087185/

PDF: The underappreciated role of muscle in health and disease

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/3/475.full.pdf

There is a long and wordy section about muscle and insulin resistance, some choice outtakes:

However, over the past few years it has become evident that changes in the metabolic function of muscle itself plays a more direct role in the genesis of insulin resistance than previously appreciated. (This is rebutting the idea that higher fat levels explain insulin resistance.)

as little as a single bout of exercise [thereby stimulating triacylglycerol deposition in muscle intramuscular triacylglycerol (IMTG) oxidation] can transiently reverse insulin resistance (44).

The section concludes with:

Regardless of the specific intracellular mechanisms at the molecular level, it is clear that insulin resistance is not simply the result of increased fat mass and release of FFAs into plasma at an accelerated rate, with the muscle responding to elevated plasma FAA concentrations. Rather, alterations in the metabolic function of muscle are central to the development of insulin resistance and ultimately diabetes.

I am not finding an exact point at which it explicitly says "Muscle loss causes insulin resistance" but that was my personal takeaway from reading this some time back. (On the other hand, maybe it does explicitly say that and I am just rushed for time and have crap eyesight, so maybe I am just not finding it. Whatever.)

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#76

Post by bdcravens »

Mz wrote: post #74
bdcravens wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have CF. About 2009 (age 32) I developed diabetes (commonly known as CFRD, CF related diabetes). CF patients early on have the ducts in their pancreas blocked from producing digestive enzymes, causing low weight. We take digestive enzyme supplements to (inefficiently) counter this. (I realize you have CF too - laying out background for the non-CF reader) My understanding is that the eventual diabetes is caused by g…

I genuinely think it is a lot more complicated than that. My blood sugar is more stable than it has ever been and I have gotten off digestive enzymes. I wasn't doing anything to specifically try to fix my blood sugar issues. I was doing things like trying to get inflammation and infection under control based on the success of therapies like daily ibuprofen. I read up on that, inferred that if you can reduce inflammat…

> Though the degree to which you can correct these problems no doubt will be influenced by which specific alleles you have, I think there is a lot of room for improvement for most people with CF. Maybe it won't make much difference if you have one of the variations where the CFTR just basically doesn't work at all.

I'm delta-f508 homozygous, so I suspect there's less CFTR function. I lose a tremendous amount of salt when I sweat, so I suspect that's an indicator of function level. Oddly enough, I've always had less respiratory issues for CF, but my stomach pain and weight have been pretty severe as long as I can remember. (I wasn't diagnosed about age 13, and I can remember intense pain before then. When I'm religious about enzymes it's usually not an issue however.) My A1C these days is poor, and my BGC always runs high. I could probably counteract with diet, but then I have to contend to with keeping my weight up. I suspect I may be a much lower pancreas function than what you're describing.

> Anyway, my apologies if I have offended.

Not at all! I'll definitely look into inflammation etc.

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#77

Post by Mz »

bdcravens wrote: post #76
Mz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely think it is a lot more complicated than that. My blood sugar is more stable than it has ever been and I have gotten off digestive enzymes. I wasn't doing anything to specifically try to fix my blood sugar issues. I was doing things like trying to get inflammation and infection under control based on the success of therapies like daily ibuprofen. I read up on that, inferred that if you can reduce inflammat…

> Though the degree to which you can correct these problems no doubt will be influenced by which specific alleles you have, I think there is a lot of room for improvement for most people with CF. Maybe it won't make much difference if you have one of the variations where the CFTR just basically doesn't work at all. I'm delta-f508 homozygous, so I suspect there's less CFTR function. I lose a tremendous amount of salt…

Try adding aloe vera to your diet as a first step.

http://miceats.blogspot.com/2016/09/aloe-vera.html

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#78

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

mistermann wrote: post #72
mtreis86 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule of tongue - if it tastes salty its too much salt. Take a half full water bottle. Add some salt. See if it is salty yet, then keep adding until it is just barely salty. Then fill the bottle to the top. If you taste salt you added too much. Note that with kcl, you start with less water, more like a quarter of the bottle, because the salty flavor is much weaker.

This is with every bottle you drink? So basically once I figure out the amount, I should put that much in every time I get a fresh glass?

Hey. If you're drinking lots of water and getting lots of cramps, don't ask people on the internets. Ask a physician, right? If there's something wrong with your kidneys, say, you won't make it better until you figure out what it is.

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#79

Post by calvano915 »

abakker wrote: post #33
tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disagree, I went for a 5 hour fairly hard (~2000m of climbing) bike ride last summer in hot weather with no food and drinking only plain water (and not that much water at that, around 1l during the ride, of course I had a very large breakfast beforehand) without any issues whatsoever. I am not sure about the whole "working out requires eating salt tabs", when I was doing triathlons a lot of people took them and it wa…

I wish I were like you! Before salt tabs, I'd cramp up and be useless after a pretty short time on the bike - maybe 2 hours / 2000 ft of climbing on a mountain bike. Now that I add two of those nuun tablets to my 3 L of water I sweat less and never cramp up anymore. My sweat has always been very salty my whole life. I wish I didn't need to supplement for longer rides but time has shown me that it is unrealistic for m…

Plasma volume and salt concentration in sweat varies with where you're acclimatized, which could be a differing factor.

Re: Our understanding of the way the body handles salt may be wrong

#80

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

givan wrote: post #50

Salt as far as I know is the only mineral (non plant) spice we use, it's purpose is to enhance taste. There is a common confusion between salt (sodium chloride) and sodium, many falsely believing salt is not used only for taste but it's essential for health. Sodium is a vital element that is found in almost all plants and animals and there is no need for an extra sodium intake because our food has plenty. Sodium and…

Ammonium Chloride is also used. Indian cooking uses it as an ingredient in chaat masala, and the Nordics use it to flavor licorice to make salmiakki. It's typically called noshader or sal ammoniac if you're looking for it in a market.

It's still a salt, but a salt of ammonia instead of sodium. And very different in flavor.

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