I was told to avoid salt because of my blood pressure problems from the age of 18. So I got used to not eating salt... I avoided salty snacks, never added salt to my food and figured I was doing a good thing.
Then a couple of years ago, during a routine blood test my dr told me my sodium level was extremely low and I was to start eating salt to bring it up! Well heck yes it was low, I'd been avoiding salt for 35+ yrs as instructed!
Now I decided to research the benefits of sea salt over average table salt and stumbled on an article about studies on salt and our health. According to the article:
Quote:
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The past president of the American Heart Association, Dr. Suzanne Oparil of the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said her personal view is that the government may have been too quick to recommend that everyone cut back. "Salt restriction as a solitary recommendation for the population for the prevention or the treatment of hypertension. An eight-year study of a New York City hypertensive population stratified for sodium intake levels found those on low-salt diets had more than four times as many heart attacks as those on normal-sodium diets – the exact opposite of what the “salt hypothesis” would have predicted. (1995). Dr. Jeffrey R. Cutler documented no health outcomes benefits of lower-sodium diets.
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Now I wonder if all those years of restricting my salt intake played a role in my heart attack! How frustrating! I tried to be healthier by following my drs (several different ones over the years) orders and instead was putting myself at risk.