The Salt Fix

Fascinating read about salt. This is an essential thing for our body and has apparently been the victim of pseudoscience since the turn of the 20th century. The author takes the time to go through old “data” and reports about salt as well as evaluating more recent and better quality scientific studies. The end result is that the majority of people do not benefit from salt restriction and actually may benefit greatly from increasing the salt in their diet for many reasons.

As a physician, I found the book to be sound and makes a ton of sense. He also talks about salt's place in several hormonal blood pressure and electrolyte regulation loops in human physiology and it's pretty eye-opening that we've lived and often practiced with these misconceptions for decades. It's very (eerily!) similar to the misconceptions on macronutrients (carbs, fats, proteins) that have lead to the current epidemic of obesity in America. It appears likely that these misconceptions all stem from the same groups who lobbied for their pet products (big corn/agra/sugar/processed foods) without sound science to back it up and who have been systematically been undermining sound science that has been released for these decades.

This is a must read for anyone who is health-conscious in any way.