High Salt Intake; Blood Pressure; Acidosis; Bone Health: Hypercortisolism

[Owen B]

High salt intake: detrimental not only for blood pressure, but also for bone health?

A different slant on the pros and cons of salt intake.

 

[Tristan Loscha]

High sodium intake and high dietary or metabolic acid loading have two important things in common. Both induce a so called low grade metabolic acidosis, i.e., a moderate shift of blood pH and blood bicarbonate buffer to lower levels, usually still within the “normal healthy” range [8, 9]. The high renal sodium excretion following high NaCl ingestion causes an adaptive (renal physiological) reduction in tubular reabsorption of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), thus reducing our most important circulating buffer system NaHCO3. Corresponding NaHCO3 reductions also occur after dietary acid loading, i.e., through increases in potential renal acid loads (PRAL), biochemically measurable as renal NAE increases. The consequences of either form of low grade metabolic acidosis are increases in glucocorticoids, i.e., cortisol levels, as have been reported for high salt intake.

 

[Peatness]

This article suggests anything greater than 5g a day is high. Many on the forum seem to do well on much more than that.

 

[Ulysses]

Read the first article cited in the one you posted

"However, current evidence from prospective cohort studies suggests a J-shaped association between sodium intake and cardiovascular events, based on studies from >300 000 people, and suggests that the lowest risk of cardiovascular events and death occurs in populations consuming an average sodium intake range (3-5 g/d). The increased risk of cardiovascular events associated with higher sodium intake (>5 g/d) is most prominent in those with hypertension."

That's 3 to 5 grams of sodium, yet the article you posted frames things in terms of salt, and says that 5 grams of salt is a high daily sodium intake. Even though that's only about 2 grams of actual sodium, which totally contradicts their own first citation:

"According to the current view, NaCl intakes >5 g/day are already associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular events related to higher blood pressure."

The most charitable view of this conflation is that they mean 5 grams of added salt, which combined with the naturally occurring sodium in food should put you somewhere in the 3 to 5 daily grams of sodium range.

But it's sloppy at and unprofessional at best to talk about CVD risk in terms of salt intake when the chloride part of the molecule is, even according to mainstream medical science as I understand it, completely irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[David PS]

The association between dietary sodium intake and osteoporosis

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18830-4.pdf