As I enter my 19th year in the clinical setting, I'm still continually learning.  One of the biggest impacts I have witnessed this past year is the power of more SALT...like a LOT more.  Yes, the white substance your cardiologist wants you to avoid. 

I've seen major improvements in clients dealing with fatigue, brain fog, arrhythmias, sleep, and even athletic performance. 

A 2011 study in JAMA found that 5 grams (5,000 mg) of sodium was the sweet spot for minimizing heart attacks and strokes.  The past few decades, the max range your doctor has been recommending is 2,300 mg.  At 2,300 mg, they feel they are being generous.  They would like you to have even less, which is absolutely insane when you start asking "what's the role?" of sodium instead of "is sodium good or bad?" 

It's also interesting that the sodium and other mineral ratios in salt water are roughly equal to that of human blood.  It has also been shown that humans can survive if blood is replaced with sterilized sea water.  In fact, this was used in emergency settings in both World Wars.  

What your doctor never talks about are the essential roles of sodium.  Sodium is used by your body for nerve signaling, cell receptors on surface membranes, and acid-base buffering, just to name a few.  In other words, virtually all communications in your body are dependent on adequate sodium levels.  

If 5,000 mg of sodium is the sweet spot for function, when would a person require more (or at the very least obtain the 5,000 mg)? 

I hate the word stress as it usually gets lumped into a category of negative emotional experiences.  Negative emotional experiences can be a part of a high life demand, but so is exercising, raising kids, and any aspect of life where you're required and desire to be your best. 

WHY would this require more salt/sodium?  The more life demands of us, the more our adrenals have to produce hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to keep us going.  

Adrenaline helps us retain sodium (hold onto it) so we have all those appropriate cell signaling and nerve communication materials.  The catch is that if we don't consume enough sodium, that makes our adrenals work even harder to retain the little that we have.  

The more generous your salt intake, the less demand on your adrenals.  In fact, with all the adrenal supplement support out there, I haven't seen anything as impactful as good ole salt and electrolytes.  Just be careful NOT to combine with high carbs that also spike an insulin response.  

Just above I mentioned not combining salt with high carbs.  Why?  Because high carb/sugar intake can also create a high insulin response.  

So what.  Well, insulin is another hormone that will tell the kidneys to hold onto (retain) sodium.   In what foods do we find the highest sodium content that also contains the highest insulin response, YET, is also the #1 recommended food by your doctor?   Grain products, regardless if they are whole grains or not.

When your doctor says you need to avoid sodium, really back him into the corner and say, "then I should avoid grains, right?"  

The combo of high life demand and adrenaline with a diet that creates high blood sugars and insulin is a recipe for major kidney overload and damage (FYI, it's not the protein).  In this scenario, you may be sensitive to sodium.  But it's not the fault of sodium.  Instead, it's internal chaos.  Sodium is the least of your concerns about a high stress/high insulin response lifestyle.  

With the new year approaching, let's say you start embarking on some dietary changes of fasting, low carb, and keto-style eating to lose weight.  The success of these styles is that it keeps your insulin response low and helps to reverse insulin resistance. 

If you plan on going low carb/keto and do some fasting, you will NEED more salt.  If you're cutting the grains, you also just remove your biggest source of sodium too.  

If insulin is low, then there isn't that signal for the kidneys to retain and hold onto sodium, thus creating a higher intake need to maintain those nerve and cell signaling.

Drinking water is NOT the same thing as hydration.  The definition of hydration is "the process of causing something to absorb water."  Yes, you need water but you need something to hold onto water.  Enter salt/electrolytes.

If there aren't enough electrolytes, it can go one of two ways.  Your body will over compensate and retain the water in hopes of retaining any sodium, creating swelling and edema.   Or water will go straight through you and you feel like you're constantly peeing (and sometimes, it's not from the correct exit). 

As a side note, water often follows sugar.  So, if blood sugars are chronically elevated, water will chase the sugar to dilute the impact, therefore also causing a scenario of peeing all the time.  Those high blood sugars could be from diet but can also be from the adrenal response from a high demand lifestyle.  You probably already know what I would advise next...more salt.  

My favorite way of increasing my electrolyte intake is by using LMNT.  You can get it online, but we also carry it in our office.  Feel free to stop by and grab your favorite flavors.