September 15, 2025 • 39 mins
Episode Highlights With Mara Labs
- We're made of salt and have an inner ocean within us
- Our inner “salt sink”, which is a place where salt reserves are stored in our body
- If you under-eat salt, this will start depleting your salt
- Problems that increase when we don’t get enough salt
- How the kidneys come into play
- The myth of too much salt leading to hypertension and high blood pressure
- Only 25% of the population is salt sensitive
- Three classes of people: inverse salt sensitive, salt sensitive, and salt resistant, and how to know which you are
- Every study ever done there is a group of people known as inverse salt sensitive
- Why the current guidelines around salt consumption are not just wrong, but possibly dangerous
- The real story of sodium and longevity - and it's often higher than the average person eats
- How much salt we actually need daily for optimal health (10g!)
- The relationship with insulin and salt and how insulin resistance increases salt sensitivity
- CO2 bicarbonate connection and how baking soda can be helpful
- The not well understood connection between supplements and how they impact salt
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well on through My Body's podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This podcast is brought to you by Optimizers and in
particular their product that holds my heart, which is their
magnesium Breakthrough. My goal this year is to continue to
focus on my wellness and to create more harmony and resonance.
And we all know that the foundation of health is
a good night's sleep. I talk about that so much
on this podcast, and magnesium is the one nutrient that
(00:25):
helps my sleep so much, as well as so many
other aspects of my health because magnesium is vital for
so many things within the body, and it is nearly
impossible to get enough from food anymore. And magnesium breakthrough
from Bioptimizers is in a category of its own. They
have seven different forms of magnesium in one supplement, and
since magnesium is involved in over six hundred different biochemical
(00:48):
reactions in the body, no other supplement on the market
offers all seven types of magnesium in one bottle. Pretty
Much every function of your body is upgraded when you
take magnesium regularly, from the quality I give your sleep,
to your brain function, from metabolism to stress levels, and
so much more. This is one of the few supplements
that lives on my nightstand and I'm a little odd,
(01:09):
but I take every morning because I actually get energy
from it, though most people notice that it's better at
night now. Studies point to a lot of benefits of magnesium,
including that it may help improve sleep quality, especially by
supporting healthy sleep onset and have more peaceful nights. My
Nuesium is also involved in stress management support, and it
may help maintain energy levels and positive mood while also
(01:30):
supporting mental clearness and relaxation. My nuseum is also important
for healthy imbalanced muscle tone and providing the building blocks
to strong bones, and it promotes a balance stress response,
supports relaxation, and I feel much calmer when I'm regularly
taking magnesium. So let's face it, even if you're twenty
twenty five, resolution is not all about focusing on your
(01:51):
health like minus, how are you going to be able
to shave your goals in any area without enough quality
sleep and stress management. Check out Magnesium Breakthrough and make
it part of your daily routine this year as well
for better sleep, better stress response, and much more. They
have a three hundred and sixty five day money back
guarantee and you can find it at buy optimizers dot com,
(02:12):
slash Wellness Mama and use the code Wellness Mama for
a discount. So that's b io P T I, M
I Z E r s dot com, slash Wellness Mama
and the code Wellness Mama for a discount. This podcast
is brought to you by Hiya for Children and especially
I love to talk about their new greensline for children. Now.
(02:34):
I have tasted these vitamins and they're delicious. My kids
are the ones who really love them, though, and I
love that they're getting the nutrients they need without the sugar.
Because most children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise, with
up to two teaspoons of sugar and dyes and unhealthy
chemicals or gummy additives that we don't want our kids
to have. So Haya created a superpowered children's vitamin that's
(02:56):
chewable without the sugar or the nasty additives, and it
taste great. My little ones love it. They especially are
designed to fill the most common gaps in modern children's
diets to provide full body nourishment with a taste kid's love.
And it was formulated with the help of pediatricians and
nutritional experts and pressed with a blend of twelve organic
fruits and vegetables, then supercharged with fifteen essential vitamins and minerals,
(03:19):
including vitamin D, B, twelve C, zinc, and folate, among others.
It's also not GMO, vegan, dairy free, allergy free, gelatine free,
not free, and everything else you can imagine. I love
that they test every single batch with third party testing
for heavy metals and microbials in a qualified GMP compliant
lab using scientifically validated testing methods, so you can be
(03:41):
completely at ease knowing it safe and nutritious. And it's
designed for kids and sent straight to your door so
you don't have to worry about ordering. My kids really
like these, and I love that refills show up on
schedule with no stress. Also again honorable mention to their
new Greens because if you are tired of battling your
kids to eat more greens, their Daily Greens plus Superfoods
(04:03):
is a chocolate flavored greens powder designed specifically for kids,
impact with fifty five plus whole food and greenias to
support kids' brains, their development, their digestion, and kids actually
like it. We've worked out a special deal with Haya
for the best selling children's vitamin received fifty percent off
your first order. To claim this deal, you must go
to Hiya Health dot com slash wellness Mama. This deal
(04:25):
is not available on their regular website. So again that's
h I Y A H E A l t h
dot com slash wellness Mama to get your kids the
full body nourishment they need.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I'm Katie
from Wellnessmama dot com and I am here with two
friends who I love to learn from. Who are David
Roberts and John Jildea, who both work with a company
called Mara Labs. And in this episode, we go deep
on the topic of the surprising truth about salt inflammation
(04:59):
and lunch devity, and John is actually one of the
leading experts in the world on this topic. And as
he explains so well in this episode, there's a lot
of things you may think you know about salt that
are simply not true or not backed in data. And
he's led a bunch of really fascinating research that shows
some interesting things about problems that increase when we don't.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Get enough salt. He talks about the studies he's been
involved with how much salt he personally consumes, the different
salt status people can have, and so much more. I
learned so much about salt, about the synergy with magnesium
and potassium, and ways to address this differently than I
have been. I will personally be increasing my salt consumption
as well as my magnesium, potassium and baking soda consumption,
(05:42):
in which we touch on briefly, and which I will
also be doing a solo episode on suit but without
further ado, let's learn from David and John. David and John, welcome,
Thank you guys so much for being here. I'm so
excited for this conversation.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeddie, thanks for having us. It's good to be back.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, I have enjoyed our in person conversations so much
and what an absolute wealth of knowledge you guys are,
and I'm excited to kind of deep dive into a
couple topics in particular in our time together today. The
first one that is a little bit of a soapbox
for me, and I speak mostly from an anecdotal place
of how different I feel when I dial this part in.
You guys bring the science backing to explain probably why
(06:21):
that is the case, and the topic is the truth
about salt, which is something I think has been unfairly
demonized in our society to the point of detriment, I
would argue for a lot of people, or at least
when we don't fully understand it. So I know this
is a big topic that you guys also know a
lot about and have strong feelings about. So to start broad,
can you maybe walk us into the topic of salt,
(06:43):
its importance and what inverse salt sensitivity is, as well
as some of the misconceptions that a lot of us
might believe when it comes to salt.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I would say the beginning of a conversation about salt
always has to be that basically we are made of salt.
We have an inner ocean inside of us. And quite
a few new things have been discovered relatively recently, and
that is that we have a salt sink, which is
a place where salt is stored inside your body, and
(07:14):
so you have some reserves there and it's held in
what's called the glycocalyx. The majority of that is in
your skin, So you have a big sink that you
hold salt, and it's so important that if you under
eat salt, it'll start bleeding your salt from this non
osmodic store of sodium clariate or sodium. And so that's
(07:36):
a good thing to remember, is that it's okay if
you have a you know, a short term low salt
time or time when you get rid of too much salt.
So getting your salt exactly route every moment of it
of every day isn't as important as you would think.
But if you do go without salt for long enough,
(08:00):
then you lose salt through your skin and your feces
and your urine kind of no matter what, and eventually
you will deplete all of those salt stores, and low
theoreum sodium, also called hyponatremia, is quite detrimental. When it
gets to that point, you turn on a whole series
(08:21):
of i would say counter regulatory mechanisms that make you
try and retain as much salt as possible, and all
every one of them is in the category of a
negative so clastically I match them often with the drugs
that are used for hypertension. So every drug that's used
(08:41):
for hypertension, meaning the epinephrine blockers, the angutensin a angutensin
peptide series of drugs, all of those factors go way
up when you're too low in salt, and so I
personally think it's not great idea to be beyond a
(09:02):
normal low amount of salt because you turn on all
of these factors that indeed are age reducing so epinephrine, aldosterone, norpenephyrine, angiitensin.
They're all in an animal model. Give the animal that thing,
(09:22):
they produce hypertension and decrease life longevity. So that's sort
of that's usually how I start with it, and I
guess I should say the second part is something that
most people don't know is that your kidney filters all
of your blood, and so twenty percent of all of
(09:42):
your blood goes through your kidney, and you have to
reabsorb all that sodium many, many, many many times a day.
So the amount of sodium that is reabsorbed is over
a ninety nine percent, sometimes ninety nine point nine percent,
and it just takes a little bit of a counter
(10:03):
regulatory hormone called dopamine in order to get rid of excess.
So if you overeat salt by a little bit and
your dope moinergic system is working okay, you can easily
get rid of excess.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
In the whole idea of I'm just going to jump
in with the whole idea of eating too much salt
and get it leading to high blood pressure?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And one of the things I mean, John is really humble.
He is like a world expert in salt. All of
his research who are on Ankidney's insult sensitivity and so yeah,
you'll say that and his biomesure, but he's just he
knows pretty much everything. But yeah, I mean, can you
get high blood pressure from too much salt?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
So for people basically only if you're salt sensitive, so
it's it's twenty five percent of the population. It's a
higher percentage if you are insulin resistant. So I would
say seventy five percent of people don't have to worry
about reducing salt intake. And so I think that's an
(11:08):
important thing to talk about, is that there's three classes
of people inver salt sensitive that means their blood pressure
goes up on the low salt arm of a study,
and then salt sensitives are their blood pressure goes up
on the high salt arm of the study. And we
(11:28):
can go into the signaling and stuff there, but basically,
if you're salt sensitive and you eat lots of salt
in your blood pressure goes up. You dramatically reduce your
life spam. And it's unknown on the other side. But
because low salt turns on all these things that are
known to reduce lifespan, inversalt sensitives, eating too little salt
(11:51):
for sure would be shortening their life spam.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
That's so fascinating, And that's a bigger percentage of people
than I would have expected to from minderstand from what
you said, seventy five percent of people are not salt
sensitive and actually need to get enough salt to not
get hypertension. It seems like we've been told over times
across the board, too much salt equal hypertension, and it
sounds like that is not only a myth, but completely
(12:15):
opposite for a lot of people. How might someone know
if they are salt sensitive or inversalt sensitive. Is it
is blood pressure a good metric of that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yeah, it's hard to do it in a study because
you have to give people their exact food between high
and low salt, and you know, just have salt be
the only change between the two arms of the study.
But I think for an individual if they wanted to
try and try and find out if they're salt sensitive
(12:44):
or inversalt sensitive, I would personally suggest that you get
on one of these food services where you can order
food for a week or so and or diabetes. They
often will put together a version of the food that's
low salt, go on that for a week, and then
do the same diet for another week on adding your
(13:09):
salt back. And it's a pretty small amount of salt
that's in those diets. And then of course you can
do it by just adding olives or pickles to that diet.
So that's the way to do it, and then there's
your blood pressure and you can find out which one
you're on. There's some shortcuts to that, but they're sort
of more experimental. Like for instance, I personally am inversalt sensitive.
(13:34):
And that's why that term is out there is because
I did the studies and I was also doing the study,
and I wouldn't let it rest because I was not
in a category they were putting me in with all
the salt resistant people. I said, I'm not the same
as them, and so I'm sort of the reason why
(13:54):
there is a term called universalt sensitively because you know,
a lot of these research that are grounded, you know,
in dogma, we're unable to see that category. And in fact,
every study ever done in low salt or high salt studies,
there is this group of people that you categorize as
(14:16):
inverse salt sensitive, but it was unrecognized till just a
few years ago.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But I feel like that brings up a good point
because based on what you just said, it seems like
this would actually be a pretty difficult thing to study
because you'd have to take into account sodium from food
and so much else. So can you explain, like why
a lot of salt studies or maybe this data that
we base these beliefs around salt on kind of fall
short and what we actually can know from the data
if we analyze it correctly and understand inverse salt sensitive people.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
We'd say that the most difficult thing to do in
the study is, and we have to do this, is
we take the whole meal that is prepared in a kitchen,
but you know, a scientific kitchen. We take in the
entire meal and we grind it up and then actually
measure of the amount of sodium in it by flame pometry,
so we know the exact amount of salt that's in
(15:05):
every single meal, and so every person in the study
gets the exact same the exact same diet, and so
that makes it very difficult. It's very hard to do
that study. And I think the reason why we were
able to pull out a lot of genetics from our
studies is that it's so well controlled. And a lot
of studies are just eat whatever you normally eat for
(15:27):
one arm of the study, and then the second arm
of the study is here, take all these this extra salt,
and so there's so much variation, and the low salt
arm of the study is actually prior probably a higher
salt than they realize, because it's actually very hard to
make a meal low.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Salt and amount of salt that is it. American heart
says it's what is it like three grams? And the
data says it's like a grams.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Yeah. So I always have difficulty switching between all the
ways that they measure, you know, micromoles, melmols, grams, and
so I have a little cheat sheet where I you know,
I put it into an Excel graph in order to
invert between those. But basically, if you're talking just plain sodium,
(16:19):
not including the sodium. Salt sixteen hundred milligrams is the
low salt guideline. The American Heart Association says to try
to get down to three point four is what I
think the r RDA is, and I think a lot
of doctors at least try to get you down to
two point five. But the average for Americans is about
(16:42):
eight point three. And I always bring up this one
subject whenever we talk about these is that there's gigantic
studies where they measure the amount of sodium that's in
your serum, and because it's so many people, you can
then map the number to longevity. And then the way
(17:05):
to look at it honestly is to say, what is
the amount of sodium that is associated with the with longevity?
And this simple metric is that it's quite a bit
higher where you have longevity than the average person eats.
So in serum sodium doesn't change that much, and so
(17:27):
for it to be you know, it's somewhere in the
range of one hundred and forty two millim more is
the longevity mark you're trying you should shoot for, whereas
the average is about one thirty seven. And so if
you just wanted to give general information for longevity for
(17:48):
most people. They would say, you need to increase your salt.
As long as you're not salt sensitive, you'd be increasing
your lifespan.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So what's the daily salt that we should try to hit.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
It says sodium chloride. I would say around ten grams.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
What about magnesium and potassium?
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Magnesium the HARDA is about six hundred I think that's low.
It'd be a little a little higher, and then potassium
is four point seven rams. And so that's a good
topic to bring up, is that merging researches. You know,
(18:31):
the sodium chloride to potassium ratio is important. If you
just increased your potassium slightly, most people's blood pressure goes
down a little bit. There's some really large studies where
all they did was switch sodium that's in your salt
shaaker to sotodium that has twenty five percent potassium, and
(18:55):
in very large studies, blood sure went down.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I think is so important. You know, the ketogenic diet's
really big, and I've done it on and off, and
when you low carb, you actually lose a lot of
your salt. And so I think this was like seven
years ago. I was like deep into katosis and had
started having heart popplications. So called John up. I'm like,
(19:21):
I think I'm going to die, and I was like,
could this be because of my salt? And He's like yeah,
And so I actually had studium, potassium and magnesium. So
you told me this mixture portions to make and I
just guzzled it and within thirty minutes I.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Was fine, Wow, this is so fascinating to me. And
real quick, what are the recommendations. Are there particular forms
of potassium or magnesium that seem most helpful or as
long as someone's getting enough of whatever form.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
I just know what. For magnesium, the one that's the
highest absorbable is magnesium glisoning. And so I think potassium
is more whether you want to combine it with citrate
or fluoride, and it just depends you know where you're
getting your potassium from and whether you know want the
(20:11):
advantage of having citrate and an increase cituating your die.
Citrate is converted into black carbonate, and so there's a
lot of people that are taking by carbonate because of
its you know, effects on CO two and longevity.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And I mean I use optimizers, which has all the
forms of magnesium just because it's just to be safe,
guess on safe side, I'm.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
A big fan of theirs as well, and this is
so fascinating to me. On especially the blood pressure connection,
I would guess based on what you're saying that I
would likely be inverse as well in that when I
first went kind of paleo and autoimmune, I realized by
cutting so many foods out of my diet and not
adding enough salt, I was getting very little salt and
my blood pressure actually went up. It's the only time
(20:56):
in my life I've had higher blood pressure and my
energy levels tanked. And then when I started adding in
enough salt and magnesium to your point, and I think
I also add a potassium back, then my blood pressure
normalized and I felt a lot more energetic. And that's
what kind of initially tuned me into. Like I don't
know why, but for me, at least, salt seems really
important and really connected to my energy levels. But I
(21:17):
feel like most people have gotten that opposite type story
and still kind of have that myth about salt and
blood pressure. So I would love to explore what are
some of the other root causes of high blood pressure.
If it's not just about salt. Like I could guess,
maybe insulin might be come into play here, or inflammation,
or there may be other factors. But what can people
look at outside of the salt story when it comes
(21:37):
to hypertension or high blood pressure.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, the relationship with insulin is really important, and so
if you're overweight and insulin resistant, the percentage of salt
sensitive individuals goes up close to sixty percent, And so
as you lose insulin sensitivity, you become more salt sensitive.
So that case, if you're insulin resistant, you should be
(22:03):
more weary of the extra salt, and the opposite is
for inversalt sensitives. Inversalt sensitives tend not to be overweight,
and I really heard of this classification yet, but hyper
insulin sensitive. So if you are hyper insulin sensitive, then
(22:23):
you would tend to spill sodium which could send you
into that And this hasn't been born out in studies yet,
but I certainly feel better when I take extra salt though.
Fatigue is a really common feature of the FUAU under sodium,
and you can modulate your own sodium amounts by the
(22:46):
combination of blood pressure and how you feel with fatigue
and things like that, how.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Much salt do you take a day? What are you.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Name for eighteen grams?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I'm laughing, yeah, because the American Heart Association people would
be having a cow right now.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah. For inverse salt sensitives, you can definitely check take
more salt. And I have to actually be careful when
I'm fasting because I tend to spill even more sodium
than normal.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I'm really curious in myself to experiment with adding a
lot more salt actually, especially living in Florida in a
hot climate, and I regularly sauna and work outside and exercise.
And I don't know if this is true, but I've
read that people who have either of those factors, of
which I have all three, can lose more minerals in
five years than a sedentary person in a cool area
might in their whole lifetime. So as you were saying that,
(23:40):
I'm like, oh, I bet I could benefit from increasing
my salt even more because I'm definitely not getting above
ten grams a day. So I'm going to experiment with that.
This podcast is brought to you by Optimizers, and in
particular their product that holds my heart, which is their
magnesium breakthrough. My goal this year is to continue to
(24:01):
focus on my wellness and to create more harmony and resonance.
And we all know that the foundation of health is
a good night's sleep. I talk about that so much
on this podcast, and magnesium is the one nutrient that
helps my sleep so much, as well as so many
other aspects of my health, because magnesium is vital for
so many things within the body, and it is nearly
impossible to get enough from food anymore. And magnesium breakthrough
(24:26):
from Bioptimizers is in a category of its own. They
have seven different forms of magnesium in one supplement, and
since magnesium is involved in over six hundred different biochemical
reactions in the body, no other supplement on the market
offers all seven types of magnesium in one bottle. Pretty
Much every function of your body is upgraded when you
take magnesium regularly, from the quality of your sleep to
(24:47):
your brain function, from metabolism to stress levels and so
much more. This is one of the few supplements that
lives on my nightstand, and I'm a little odd, but
I take every morning because I actually get energy from it.
Though most people notice that it's better at night. Now,
studies point to a lot of benefits of magnesium, including
that it may help improve sleep quality, especially by supporting
(25:08):
healthy sleep onset and have more peaceful nights. My Nusium
is also involved in stress management support and it may
help maintain energy levels and positive mood while also supporting
mental clearness and relaxation. My museum is also important for
healthy imbalanced muscle tone and providing the building blocks to
strong bones, and it promotes a balance stress response, supports relaxation,
(25:29):
and I feel much calmer when I'm regularly taking magnesium.
So let's face it, even if you're twenty twenty five,
resolution is not all about focusing on your health like minus,
how are you going to be able to shave your
goals in any area without enough quality sleep and stress management.
Check out Magnesium Breakthrough and make it part of your
daily routine this year as well for better sleep, better
(25:50):
stress response, and much more. They have a three hundred
and sixty five day money back guarantee and you can
find it at to buy Optimizers dot com, slash while
less Mama and use the code Wellness Mama for a discount.
So that's b io p T I M I Z
e rs dot com slash Wellness Mama and the Code
Wellness Mama for a discount. This podcast is brought to
(26:13):
you by Hyah for children and especially I love to
talk about their new greensline for children. Now. I have
tasted these vitamins and they're delicious. My kids are the
ones who really love them, though, and I love that
they're getting the nutrients they need without the sugar. Because
most children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise, with up
(26:34):
to two teaspoons of sugar and dyes and unhealthy chemicals
or gummy additives that we don't want our kids to have.
So Haya created a superpowered children's vitamin that's chewable without
the sugar or the nasty additives, and it tastes great.
My little ones love it. They especially are designed to
fill the most common gaps in modern children's diets to
provide full body nourishment with a taste kid's love. And
(26:56):
it was formulated with the help of pediatricians and nutritional
experts and pressed with a blend of twelve organic fruits
and vegetables, then supercharged with fifteen essential vitamins and minerals,
including vitamin D, B, twelve C zinc and folate, among others.
It's also non GMO, vegan, dairy free, allergy free, gelatine free,
not free, and everything else you can imagine. I love
(27:17):
that they test every single batch with third party testing
for heavy metals and microbials in a qualified GMP compliant
lab using scientifically validated testing methods, so you can be
completely at ease knowing it's safe and nutritious. And it's
designed for kids and sent straight to your door so
you don't have to worry about ordering. My kids really
like these, and I love that refills show up on
(27:40):
schedule with no stress. Also, again, honorable mention to their
new Greens because if you are tired of battling your
kids to eat more greens, their Daily Greens plus Superfoods
is a chocolate flavored greens powder designed specifically for kids,
impact with fifty five plus whole food ingredients to support
kids' brains, their development, their digestion, and actually like it.
(28:01):
We've worked out a special deal with Haya for the
best selling children's vitamin received fifty percent off your first order.
To clean this deal, you must go to Hia health
dot com slash wellness Mama. This deal is not available
on their regular website. So again that's h I Y
A H E A L T H dot com slash
wellness Mama to get your kids the full body nourishment
(28:22):
they need. I'd also love to circle back to the
kidney connection, because this is another area where I feel
like people are told be really careful about salt and
protein consumption, ironically because it's bad for your kidneys. So
what is the real story with that? And I even
have a note from researching this of understanding poor renal
proximal to rule function. If you could even explain what
(28:43):
that is and what we need to know about our
kidneys and salt.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Okay, just going back to your hypertension or high blood
pressure exercise, I mean just the non salt related exercise.
The more you exercise, the lower your blood pressure be.
I'll call consumption less. I'll call you in take or
take in the lower your blood pressure. If you can
get in good sleep, you'll have good blood pressure. And
(29:07):
then hydration is an important one. And I actually try
to have my water be isotonic, So I'll throw in
you probably use this to the LMNT salt. Actually have
it right here in this water bottle. A packet which
has magnesium potassium, and that doesn't have what amounts John
we mentioned, but it's you know, it's some and what
(29:28):
that does is that you absorb more water. Basically, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Big element van to you. I'll put that link in
the show notes. But yes, onto the kidneys.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yeah, So I guess as an introduction, I have to
make a disclaimer. I see all of health through the
lens of healthy proximal tubule cells. So my proximal tubial
centric view of the world is a little bit jaded,
so you'll hear a strange notion of health from this.
But when I start talking about the proximal tubules, one
(29:58):
thing that I think most people don't realize is that
it's a component of a critical component of health that
has to be counteracted with how you absorb nutrients. So
I always put the two together. Is during digestion you
consume food, there's nutrients in there that you have to
(30:19):
break down and make it accessible to your ability to
take up nutrients. And then I always use the analogy
of hungry hungry hippos, So the nutrients come by, and
then your body has selective means to take up the
things that you want to keep, and then everything that's
a non food or a non nutrient goes by and
(30:40):
that ends up in your feces. So you take up
what you want to keep. That goes into your circulation,
It goes to every one of your cells in your body,
and then those cells are producing toxins, so those toxins
are released, and then you do it again in your kidney.
(31:00):
All of your blood goes through your kidney. All the
proteins that are under fifty thousand killed altans go through,
so you have to resorb reabsorb all of your nutrients again,
and so it's that double filter of uptake in your
intestines and then refiltering it again in your kidney. That
(31:23):
is actually the filter that everyone says the kidney is
and so coxins flow by and go into your urine.
But all the things you want to keep have to
be reabsorbed, and so that's all the sugar, all of
the amino acids, everything you can pick of potassium, magnesium,
sodium chloride, by carbonate, so I say bicarbonate is what
(31:45):
controls the pH of the body. And so your whole
body is dependent on your proximal tubile reabsorbing bicarbonate, since
it's a bicarbonate system that pa EM buffers your whole body.
And then of course all those nutrients. And then another
big one that a lot of people don't realize is
proxymal tubule and an adult is the sensor for oxygen.
(32:08):
So if you don't get adequate oxygen to your proximal
tubial cells, those cells are the cells that make erythropweedon,
so you stimulate red blood cell production is dependent on
healthy proximal tubiles. So whenever I'm part of an argument
is when someone perishes, is it the brain or is
(32:29):
it the heart stopping, I always say no, it's when
the proximal tubile stop reabsorbing. Because as soon as that stops,
your entire salt goes into your urine. You your nerves
stop working because every nerve in your whole body eats
sodium and potassium, so you'll have essentially brain death because
(32:52):
of nutrient depositions.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
So yeah, and that's important point that Chimes bringing up
is that basically it's not the salts just not in
your blood. It's used for the cells to signal each other.
It's a communication network. So basically the sodium chloride potassium
are used for cell signaling both and intra cell signaling too,
(33:17):
and so it's vitally important.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And I'm so fascinated by the bicarbonate piece as well.
I know I've actually just started this week experimenting with
that a little bit after reading some data about that.
But I would love to hear your take on that.
Is that something that you feel like can be beneficial,
and if so, are there any guidelines related to that.
Because I just started this, I don't feel like I
have enough days under my belt to know if I
feel a difference yet.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
So I would say that the guiding principle there that
I think most people are not aware of is that
when you are shallow breathing or mouth breathing, that you're
actually getting rid of xss CO two and the CO
two to buy carbonate ratio is really important, and so
(34:02):
you have to have adequate CO two in order to
release your oxygen to the cells. You know, through the
artery they'll for proper oxygenation, you actually need to have
enough CO two. And so what's driving a lot of
that is is I guess that's the easiest way to
understand that is that Whenever someone that I meet starts
(34:24):
having trouble with their kidneys as they're getting older, they
have starting to progress down on a kidney disease, then
the first thing you should do is take suitium bicarbonate.
So it is just baking soda a teaspoon in water,
eight ounces a day and many times will stop the
progression of on a kidie disease. And so having adequate
(34:48):
both CO two and by carbonate for your pH is
really important. And I guess I should plug my own
paper was We're the first to find out that a
sodium bicarbonate transporter in the kidney that reabsorbs both sodium
and bicarbonate. There's a genetic defect in people that is
(35:10):
the most highly associated genetic association with salt sensitivity, though
when that is low, then you have salt sensitivity.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
This is so fascinating. I've taken so many notes that
I love that we really got to dive into this topic.
I'm also excited that we're going to get to record
another episode that really dives deep into the science of
supplements and bioavailability and something that I've been taking for
years called sulfur faint. But before we put a bone
in the topic of salt and magnesium and potassium and
bicarbonate and all the things we've covered today. Is there
(35:40):
anything I haven't asked you or still remaining misconceptions or
parting thoughts that you think are really important before we
wrap up the conversation around salt.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Yeah, I mean, just because I'm in both worlds of
salt and supplements. I think one of the maybe if
we want to have a little primer saying you know,
aware it's coming up soon, is that it's pretty understudied
and unknown the connection between the supplements that are commonly
(36:09):
taken and what they do to salt, And so maybe
a little piece of information is I always person to
discover that in inversalt sensitive individuals on a low salt diet,
you reduce ner F two. N r F two is
a really important transcription factor that regulates all kinds of
(36:31):
things we'll probably talk about later. But sulforaphane is the
best inducer of nterer F two. So even if you
were an inver salt sensitive and hate a little bit
too little ossalt, you can protect yourself by having some
sulfor fhane on hand so that it doesn't damage your kidney.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I think, is it true? Also, potentially more people die
from to little salt versus too much.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
So I think it's hard to because it's unrecognized. Yeah,
hard to know. But with the mortality data from very
large studies, I know this is a contested piece of information.
But when you measure the amount of sodium that's in
urine in a very large number of people, under a
(37:21):
certain amount of salt in the urine is associated with
much steeper gradient of death than the gradient as you're
going higher in salt. Though, it's more dangerous to go
lower than average in terms of mortality than it is
are going above the normal amount of sodium.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
And that's important because you know as people age, the
baby Brewers, first thing they do if they go into
a nursing home is you put the model the It's
just like, you know, what is that doing to them?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
So yeah, and that's a protected group of people. So
it's unstudied, and so we actually tried to put in
agreement this year and we're unsuccessful to try and measure
that in nursing homes.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That's so interesting. Well, I've got full show notes that
I've been taking notes while we've been talking as well
as links to you guys and your research and your products,
which I know we haven't even gotten to get deep
into in this episode, but we will in our follow
up episode, so please stay tuned and join me for
that episode as well. But for this one, David John,
thank you so much. This has been so fascinating. I
learned a lot and I'm so excited for our second round.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Katie, thanks so much for having us, thanks for your
great questions, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And thank you for listening, and I hope you will
join me again on the next episode of the Wellness
Mama podcast. If you're enjoying these interviews, would you please
take two minutes to leave a rating or review on
iTunes for me. Doing this helps more people to find
the podcast, which means even more moms and families could
benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time and
(38:55):
thanks as always for listening.
Well on through My Body's podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This podcast is brought to you by Optimizers and in
particular their product that holds my heart, which is their
magnesium Breakthrough. My goal this year is to continue to
focus on my wellness and to create more harmony and resonance.
And we all know that the foundation of health is
a good night's sleep. I talk about that so much
on this podcast, and magnesium is the one nutrient that
(00:25):
helps my sleep so much, as well as so many
other aspects of my health because magnesium is vital for
so many things within the body, and it is nearly
impossible to get enough from food anymore. And magnesium breakthrough
from Bioptimizers is in a category of its own. They
have seven different forms of magnesium in one supplement, and
since magnesium is involved in over six hundred different biochemical
(00:48):
reactions in the body, no other supplement on the market
offers all seven types of magnesium in one bottle. Pretty
Much every function of your body is upgraded when you
take magnesium regularly, from the quality I give your sleep,
to your brain function, from metabolism to stress levels, and
so much more. This is one of the few supplements
that lives on my nightstand and I'm a little odd,
(01:09):
but I take every morning because I actually get energy
from it, though most people notice that it's better at
night now. Studies point to a lot of benefits of magnesium,
including that it may help improve sleep quality, especially by
supporting healthy sleep onset and have more peaceful nights. My
Nuesium is also involved in stress management support, and it
may help maintain energy levels and positive mood while also
(01:30):
supporting mental clearness and relaxation. My nuseum is also important
for healthy imbalanced muscle tone and providing the building blocks
to strong bones, and it promotes a balance stress response,
supports relaxation, and I feel much calmer when I'm regularly
taking magnesium. So let's face it, even if you're twenty
twenty five, resolution is not all about focusing on your
(01:51):
health like minus, how are you going to be able
to shave your goals in any area without enough quality
sleep and stress management. Check out Magnesium Breakthrough and make
it part of your daily routine this year as well
for better sleep, better stress response, and much more. They
have a three hundred and sixty five day money back
guarantee and you can find it at buy optimizers dot com,
(02:12):
slash Wellness Mama and use the code Wellness Mama for
a discount. So that's b io P T I, M
I Z E r s dot com, slash Wellness Mama
and the code Wellness Mama for a discount. This podcast
is brought to you by Hiya for Children and especially
I love to talk about their new greensline for children. Now.
(02:34):
I have tasted these vitamins and they're delicious. My kids
are the ones who really love them, though, and I
love that they're getting the nutrients they need without the sugar.
Because most children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise, with
up to two teaspoons of sugar and dyes and unhealthy
chemicals or gummy additives that we don't want our kids
to have. So Haya created a superpowered children's vitamin that's
(02:56):
chewable without the sugar or the nasty additives, and it
taste great. My little ones love it. They especially are
designed to fill the most common gaps in modern children's
diets to provide full body nourishment with a taste kid's love.
And it was formulated with the help of pediatricians and
nutritional experts and pressed with a blend of twelve organic
fruits and vegetables, then supercharged with fifteen essential vitamins and minerals,
(03:19):
including vitamin D, B, twelve C, zinc, and folate, among others.
It's also not GMO, vegan, dairy free, allergy free, gelatine free,
not free, and everything else you can imagine. I love
that they test every single batch with third party testing
for heavy metals and microbials in a qualified GMP compliant
lab using scientifically validated testing methods, so you can be
(03:41):
completely at ease knowing it safe and nutritious. And it's
designed for kids and sent straight to your door so
you don't have to worry about ordering. My kids really
like these, and I love that refills show up on
schedule with no stress. Also again honorable mention to their
new Greens because if you are tired of battling your
kids to eat more greens, their Daily Greens plus Superfoods
(04:03):
is a chocolate flavored greens powder designed specifically for kids,
impact with fifty five plus whole food and greenias to
support kids' brains, their development, their digestion, and kids actually
like it. We've worked out a special deal with Haya
for the best selling children's vitamin received fifty percent off
your first order. To claim this deal, you must go
to Hiya Health dot com slash wellness Mama. This deal
(04:25):
is not available on their regular website. So again that's
h I Y A H E A l t h
dot com slash wellness Mama to get your kids the
full body nourishment they need.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I'm Katie
from Wellnessmama dot com and I am here with two
friends who I love to learn from. Who are David
Roberts and John Jildea, who both work with a company
called Mara Labs. And in this episode, we go deep
on the topic of the surprising truth about salt inflammation
(04:59):
and lunch devity, and John is actually one of the
leading experts in the world on this topic. And as
he explains so well in this episode, there's a lot
of things you may think you know about salt that
are simply not true or not backed in data. And
he's led a bunch of really fascinating research that shows
some interesting things about problems that increase when we don't.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Get enough salt. He talks about the studies he's been
involved with how much salt he personally consumes, the different
salt status people can have, and so much more. I
learned so much about salt, about the synergy with magnesium
and potassium, and ways to address this differently than I
have been. I will personally be increasing my salt consumption
as well as my magnesium, potassium and baking soda consumption,
(05:42):
in which we touch on briefly, and which I will
also be doing a solo episode on suit but without
further ado, let's learn from David and John. David and John, welcome,
Thank you guys so much for being here. I'm so
excited for this conversation.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeddie, thanks for having us. It's good to be back.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, I have enjoyed our in person conversations so much
and what an absolute wealth of knowledge you guys are,
and I'm excited to kind of deep dive into a
couple topics in particular in our time together today. The
first one that is a little bit of a soapbox
for me, and I speak mostly from an anecdotal place
of how different I feel when I dial this part in.
You guys bring the science backing to explain probably why
(06:21):
that is the case, and the topic is the truth
about salt, which is something I think has been unfairly
demonized in our society to the point of detriment, I
would argue for a lot of people, or at least
when we don't fully understand it. So I know this
is a big topic that you guys also know a
lot about and have strong feelings about. So to start broad,
can you maybe walk us into the topic of salt,
(06:43):
its importance and what inverse salt sensitivity is, as well
as some of the misconceptions that a lot of us
might believe when it comes to salt.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I would say the beginning of a conversation about salt
always has to be that basically we are made of salt.
We have an inner ocean inside of us. And quite
a few new things have been discovered relatively recently, and
that is that we have a salt sink, which is
a place where salt is stored inside your body, and
(07:14):
so you have some reserves there and it's held in
what's called the glycocalyx. The majority of that is in
your skin, So you have a big sink that you
hold salt, and it's so important that if you under
eat salt, it'll start bleeding your salt from this non
osmodic store of sodium clariate or sodium. And so that's
(07:36):
a good thing to remember, is that it's okay if
you have a you know, a short term low salt
time or time when you get rid of too much salt.
So getting your salt exactly route every moment of it
of every day isn't as important as you would think.
But if you do go without salt for long enough,
(08:00):
then you lose salt through your skin and your feces
and your urine kind of no matter what, and eventually
you will deplete all of those salt stores, and low
theoreum sodium, also called hyponatremia, is quite detrimental. When it
gets to that point, you turn on a whole series
(08:21):
of i would say counter regulatory mechanisms that make you
try and retain as much salt as possible, and all
every one of them is in the category of a
negative so clastically I match them often with the drugs
that are used for hypertension. So every drug that's used
(08:41):
for hypertension, meaning the epinephrine blockers, the angutensin a angutensin
peptide series of drugs, all of those factors go way
up when you're too low in salt, and so I
personally think it's not great idea to be beyond a
(09:02):
normal low amount of salt because you turn on all
of these factors that indeed are age reducing so epinephrine, aldosterone, norpenephyrine, angiitensin.
They're all in an animal model. Give the animal that thing,
(09:22):
they produce hypertension and decrease life longevity. So that's sort
of that's usually how I start with it, and I
guess I should say the second part is something that
most people don't know is that your kidney filters all
of your blood, and so twenty percent of all of
(09:42):
your blood goes through your kidney, and you have to
reabsorb all that sodium many, many, many many times a day.
So the amount of sodium that is reabsorbed is over
a ninety nine percent, sometimes ninety nine point nine percent,
and it just takes a little bit of a counter
(10:03):
regulatory hormone called dopamine in order to get rid of excess.
So if you overeat salt by a little bit and
your dope moinergic system is working okay, you can easily
get rid of excess.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
In the whole idea of I'm just going to jump
in with the whole idea of eating too much salt
and get it leading to high blood pressure?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And one of the things I mean, John is really humble.
He is like a world expert in salt. All of
his research who are on Ankidney's insult sensitivity and so yeah,
you'll say that and his biomesure, but he's just he
knows pretty much everything. But yeah, I mean, can you
get high blood pressure from too much salt?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
So for people basically only if you're salt sensitive, so
it's it's twenty five percent of the population. It's a
higher percentage if you are insulin resistant. So I would
say seventy five percent of people don't have to worry
about reducing salt intake. And so I think that's an
(11:08):
important thing to talk about, is that there's three classes
of people inver salt sensitive that means their blood pressure
goes up on the low salt arm of a study,
and then salt sensitives are their blood pressure goes up
on the high salt arm of the study. And we
(11:28):
can go into the signaling and stuff there, but basically,
if you're salt sensitive and you eat lots of salt
in your blood pressure goes up. You dramatically reduce your
life spam. And it's unknown on the other side. But
because low salt turns on all these things that are
known to reduce lifespan, inversalt sensitives, eating too little salt
(11:51):
for sure would be shortening their life spam.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
That's so fascinating, And that's a bigger percentage of people
than I would have expected to from minderstand from what
you said, seventy five percent of people are not salt
sensitive and actually need to get enough salt to not
get hypertension. It seems like we've been told over times
across the board, too much salt equal hypertension, and it
sounds like that is not only a myth, but completely
(12:15):
opposite for a lot of people. How might someone know
if they are salt sensitive or inversalt sensitive. Is it
is blood pressure a good metric of that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yeah, it's hard to do it in a study because
you have to give people their exact food between high
and low salt, and you know, just have salt be
the only change between the two arms of the study.
But I think for an individual if they wanted to
try and try and find out if they're salt sensitive
(12:44):
or inversalt sensitive, I would personally suggest that you get
on one of these food services where you can order
food for a week or so and or diabetes. They
often will put together a version of the food that's
low salt, go on that for a week, and then
do the same diet for another week on adding your
(13:09):
salt back. And it's a pretty small amount of salt
that's in those diets. And then of course you can
do it by just adding olives or pickles to that diet.
So that's the way to do it, and then there's
your blood pressure and you can find out which one
you're on. There's some shortcuts to that, but they're sort
of more experimental. Like for instance, I personally am inversalt sensitive.
(13:34):
And that's why that term is out there is because
I did the studies and I was also doing the study,
and I wouldn't let it rest because I was not
in a category they were putting me in with all
the salt resistant people. I said, I'm not the same
as them, and so I'm sort of the reason why
(13:54):
there is a term called universalt sensitively because you know,
a lot of these research that are grounded, you know,
in dogma, we're unable to see that category. And in fact,
every study ever done in low salt or high salt studies,
there is this group of people that you categorize as
(14:16):
inverse salt sensitive, but it was unrecognized till just a
few years ago.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But I feel like that brings up a good point
because based on what you just said, it seems like
this would actually be a pretty difficult thing to study
because you'd have to take into account sodium from food
and so much else. So can you explain, like why
a lot of salt studies or maybe this data that
we base these beliefs around salt on kind of fall
short and what we actually can know from the data
if we analyze it correctly and understand inverse salt sensitive people.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
We'd say that the most difficult thing to do in
the study is, and we have to do this, is
we take the whole meal that is prepared in a kitchen,
but you know, a scientific kitchen. We take in the
entire meal and we grind it up and then actually
measure of the amount of sodium in it by flame pometry,
so we know the exact amount of salt that's in
(15:05):
every single meal, and so every person in the study
gets the exact same the exact same diet, and so
that makes it very difficult. It's very hard to do
that study. And I think the reason why we were
able to pull out a lot of genetics from our
studies is that it's so well controlled. And a lot
of studies are just eat whatever you normally eat for
(15:27):
one arm of the study, and then the second arm
of the study is here, take all these this extra salt,
and so there's so much variation, and the low salt
arm of the study is actually prior probably a higher
salt than they realize, because it's actually very hard to
make a meal low.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Salt and amount of salt that is it. American heart
says it's what is it like three grams? And the
data says it's like a grams.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Yeah. So I always have difficulty switching between all the
ways that they measure, you know, micromoles, melmols, grams, and
so I have a little cheat sheet where I you know,
I put it into an Excel graph in order to
invert between those. But basically, if you're talking just plain sodium,
(16:19):
not including the sodium. Salt sixteen hundred milligrams is the
low salt guideline. The American Heart Association says to try
to get down to three point four is what I
think the r RDA is, and I think a lot
of doctors at least try to get you down to
two point five. But the average for Americans is about
(16:42):
eight point three. And I always bring up this one
subject whenever we talk about these is that there's gigantic
studies where they measure the amount of sodium that's in
your serum, and because it's so many people, you can
then map the number to longevity. And then the way
(17:05):
to look at it honestly is to say, what is
the amount of sodium that is associated with the with longevity?
And this simple metric is that it's quite a bit
higher where you have longevity than the average person eats.
So in serum sodium doesn't change that much, and so
(17:27):
for it to be you know, it's somewhere in the
range of one hundred and forty two millim more is
the longevity mark you're trying you should shoot for, whereas
the average is about one thirty seven. And so if
you just wanted to give general information for longevity for
(17:48):
most people. They would say, you need to increase your salt.
As long as you're not salt sensitive, you'd be increasing
your lifespan.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So what's the daily salt that we should try to hit.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
It says sodium chloride. I would say around ten grams.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
What about magnesium and potassium?
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Magnesium the HARDA is about six hundred I think that's low.
It'd be a little a little higher, and then potassium
is four point seven rams. And so that's a good
topic to bring up, is that merging researches. You know,
(18:31):
the sodium chloride to potassium ratio is important. If you
just increased your potassium slightly, most people's blood pressure goes
down a little bit. There's some really large studies where
all they did was switch sodium that's in your salt
shaaker to sotodium that has twenty five percent potassium, and
(18:55):
in very large studies, blood sure went down.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I think is so important. You know, the ketogenic diet's
really big, and I've done it on and off, and
when you low carb, you actually lose a lot of
your salt. And so I think this was like seven
years ago. I was like deep into katosis and had
started having heart popplications. So called John up. I'm like,
(19:21):
I think I'm going to die, and I was like,
could this be because of my salt? And He's like yeah,
And so I actually had studium, potassium and magnesium. So
you told me this mixture portions to make and I
just guzzled it and within thirty minutes I.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Was fine, Wow, this is so fascinating to me. And
real quick, what are the recommendations. Are there particular forms
of potassium or magnesium that seem most helpful or as
long as someone's getting enough of whatever form.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
I just know what. For magnesium, the one that's the
highest absorbable is magnesium glisoning. And so I think potassium
is more whether you want to combine it with citrate
or fluoride, and it just depends you know where you're
getting your potassium from and whether you know want the
(20:11):
advantage of having citrate and an increase cituating your die.
Citrate is converted into black carbonate, and so there's a
lot of people that are taking by carbonate because of
its you know, effects on CO two and longevity.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And I mean I use optimizers, which has all the
forms of magnesium just because it's just to be safe,
guess on safe side, I'm.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
A big fan of theirs as well, and this is
so fascinating to me. On especially the blood pressure connection,
I would guess based on what you're saying that I
would likely be inverse as well in that when I
first went kind of paleo and autoimmune, I realized by
cutting so many foods out of my diet and not
adding enough salt, I was getting very little salt and
my blood pressure actually went up. It's the only time
(20:56):
in my life I've had higher blood pressure and my
energy levels tanked. And then when I started adding in
enough salt and magnesium to your point, and I think
I also add a potassium back, then my blood pressure
normalized and I felt a lot more energetic. And that's
what kind of initially tuned me into. Like I don't
know why, but for me, at least, salt seems really
important and really connected to my energy levels. But I
(21:17):
feel like most people have gotten that opposite type story
and still kind of have that myth about salt and
blood pressure. So I would love to explore what are
some of the other root causes of high blood pressure.
If it's not just about salt. Like I could guess,
maybe insulin might be come into play here, or inflammation,
or there may be other factors. But what can people
look at outside of the salt story when it comes
(21:37):
to hypertension or high blood pressure.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, the relationship with insulin is really important, and so
if you're overweight and insulin resistant, the percentage of salt
sensitive individuals goes up close to sixty percent, And so
as you lose insulin sensitivity, you become more salt sensitive.
So that case, if you're insulin resistant, you should be
(22:03):
more weary of the extra salt, and the opposite is
for inversalt sensitives. Inversalt sensitives tend not to be overweight,
and I really heard of this classification yet, but hyper
insulin sensitive. So if you are hyper insulin sensitive, then
(22:23):
you would tend to spill sodium which could send you
into that And this hasn't been born out in studies yet,
but I certainly feel better when I take extra salt though.
Fatigue is a really common feature of the FUAU under sodium,
and you can modulate your own sodium amounts by the
(22:46):
combination of blood pressure and how you feel with fatigue
and things like that, how.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Much salt do you take a day? What are you.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Name for eighteen grams?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I'm laughing, yeah, because the American Heart Association people would
be having a cow right now.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah. For inverse salt sensitives, you can definitely check take
more salt. And I have to actually be careful when
I'm fasting because I tend to spill even more sodium
than normal.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I'm really curious in myself to experiment with adding a
lot more salt actually, especially living in Florida in a
hot climate, and I regularly sauna and work outside and exercise.
And I don't know if this is true, but I've
read that people who have either of those factors, of
which I have all three, can lose more minerals in
five years than a sedentary person in a cool area
might in their whole lifetime. So as you were saying that,
(23:40):
I'm like, oh, I bet I could benefit from increasing
my salt even more because I'm definitely not getting above
ten grams a day. So I'm going to experiment with that.
This podcast is brought to you by Optimizers, and in
particular their product that holds my heart, which is their
magnesium breakthrough. My goal this year is to continue to
(24:01):
focus on my wellness and to create more harmony and resonance.
And we all know that the foundation of health is
a good night's sleep. I talk about that so much
on this podcast, and magnesium is the one nutrient that
helps my sleep so much, as well as so many
other aspects of my health, because magnesium is vital for
so many things within the body, and it is nearly
impossible to get enough from food anymore. And magnesium breakthrough
(24:26):
from Bioptimizers is in a category of its own. They
have seven different forms of magnesium in one supplement, and
since magnesium is involved in over six hundred different biochemical
reactions in the body, no other supplement on the market
offers all seven types of magnesium in one bottle. Pretty
Much every function of your body is upgraded when you
take magnesium regularly, from the quality of your sleep to
(24:47):
your brain function, from metabolism to stress levels and so
much more. This is one of the few supplements that
lives on my nightstand, and I'm a little odd, but
I take every morning because I actually get energy from it.
Though most people notice that it's better at night. Now,
studies point to a lot of benefits of magnesium, including
that it may help improve sleep quality, especially by supporting
(25:08):
healthy sleep onset and have more peaceful nights. My Nusium
is also involved in stress management support and it may
help maintain energy levels and positive mood while also supporting
mental clearness and relaxation. My museum is also important for
healthy imbalanced muscle tone and providing the building blocks to
strong bones, and it promotes a balance stress response, supports relaxation,
(25:29):
and I feel much calmer when I'm regularly taking magnesium.
So let's face it, even if you're twenty twenty five,
resolution is not all about focusing on your health like minus,
how are you going to be able to shave your
goals in any area without enough quality sleep and stress management.
Check out Magnesium Breakthrough and make it part of your
daily routine this year as well for better sleep, better
(25:50):
stress response, and much more. They have a three hundred
and sixty five day money back guarantee and you can
find it at to buy Optimizers dot com, slash while
less Mama and use the code Wellness Mama for a discount.
So that's b io p T I M I Z
e rs dot com slash Wellness Mama and the Code
Wellness Mama for a discount. This podcast is brought to
(26:13):
you by Hyah for children and especially I love to
talk about their new greensline for children. Now. I have
tasted these vitamins and they're delicious. My kids are the
ones who really love them, though, and I love that
they're getting the nutrients they need without the sugar. Because
most children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise, with up
(26:34):
to two teaspoons of sugar and dyes and unhealthy chemicals
or gummy additives that we don't want our kids to have.
So Haya created a superpowered children's vitamin that's chewable without
the sugar or the nasty additives, and it tastes great.
My little ones love it. They especially are designed to
fill the most common gaps in modern children's diets to
provide full body nourishment with a taste kid's love. And
(26:56):
it was formulated with the help of pediatricians and nutritional
experts and pressed with a blend of twelve organic fruits
and vegetables, then supercharged with fifteen essential vitamins and minerals,
including vitamin D, B, twelve C zinc and folate, among others.
It's also non GMO, vegan, dairy free, allergy free, gelatine free,
not free, and everything else you can imagine. I love
(27:17):
that they test every single batch with third party testing
for heavy metals and microbials in a qualified GMP compliant
lab using scientifically validated testing methods, so you can be
completely at ease knowing it's safe and nutritious. And it's
designed for kids and sent straight to your door so
you don't have to worry about ordering. My kids really
like these, and I love that refills show up on
(27:40):
schedule with no stress. Also, again, honorable mention to their
new Greens because if you are tired of battling your
kids to eat more greens, their Daily Greens plus Superfoods
is a chocolate flavored greens powder designed specifically for kids,
impact with fifty five plus whole food ingredients to support
kids' brains, their development, their digestion, and actually like it.
(28:01):
We've worked out a special deal with Haya for the
best selling children's vitamin received fifty percent off your first order.
To clean this deal, you must go to Hia health
dot com slash wellness Mama. This deal is not available
on their regular website. So again that's h I Y
A H E A L T H dot com slash
wellness Mama to get your kids the full body nourishment
(28:22):
they need. I'd also love to circle back to the
kidney connection, because this is another area where I feel
like people are told be really careful about salt and
protein consumption, ironically because it's bad for your kidneys. So
what is the real story with that? And I even
have a note from researching this of understanding poor renal
proximal to rule function. If you could even explain what
(28:43):
that is and what we need to know about our
kidneys and salt.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Okay, just going back to your hypertension or high blood
pressure exercise, I mean just the non salt related exercise.
The more you exercise, the lower your blood pressure be.
I'll call consumption less. I'll call you in take or
take in the lower your blood pressure. If you can
get in good sleep, you'll have good blood pressure. And
(29:07):
then hydration is an important one. And I actually try
to have my water be isotonic, So I'll throw in
you probably use this to the LMNT salt. Actually have
it right here in this water bottle. A packet which
has magnesium potassium, and that doesn't have what amounts John
we mentioned, but it's you know, it's some and what
(29:28):
that does is that you absorb more water. Basically, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Big element van to you. I'll put that link in
the show notes. But yes, onto the kidneys.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yeah, So I guess as an introduction, I have to
make a disclaimer. I see all of health through the
lens of healthy proximal tubule cells. So my proximal tubial
centric view of the world is a little bit jaded,
so you'll hear a strange notion of health from this.
But when I start talking about the proximal tubules, one
(29:58):
thing that I think most people don't realize is that
it's a component of a critical component of health that
has to be counteracted with how you absorb nutrients. So
I always put the two together. Is during digestion you
consume food, there's nutrients in there that you have to
(30:19):
break down and make it accessible to your ability to
take up nutrients. And then I always use the analogy
of hungry hungry hippos, So the nutrients come by, and
then your body has selective means to take up the
things that you want to keep, and then everything that's
a non food or a non nutrient goes by and
(30:40):
that ends up in your feces. So you take up
what you want to keep. That goes into your circulation,
It goes to every one of your cells in your body,
and then those cells are producing toxins, so those toxins
are released, and then you do it again in your kidney.
(31:00):
All of your blood goes through your kidney. All the
proteins that are under fifty thousand killed altans go through,
so you have to resorb reabsorb all of your nutrients again,
and so it's that double filter of uptake in your
intestines and then refiltering it again in your kidney. That
(31:23):
is actually the filter that everyone says the kidney is
and so coxins flow by and go into your urine.
But all the things you want to keep have to
be reabsorbed, and so that's all the sugar, all of
the amino acids, everything you can pick of potassium, magnesium,
sodium chloride, by carbonate, so I say bicarbonate is what
(31:45):
controls the pH of the body. And so your whole
body is dependent on your proximal tubile reabsorbing bicarbonate, since
it's a bicarbonate system that pa EM buffers your whole body.
And then of course all those nutrients. And then another
big one that a lot of people don't realize is
proxymal tubule and an adult is the sensor for oxygen.
(32:08):
So if you don't get adequate oxygen to your proximal
tubial cells, those cells are the cells that make erythropweedon,
so you stimulate red blood cell production is dependent on
healthy proximal tubiles. So whenever I'm part of an argument
is when someone perishes, is it the brain or is
(32:29):
it the heart stopping, I always say no, it's when
the proximal tubile stop reabsorbing. Because as soon as that stops,
your entire salt goes into your urine. You your nerves
stop working because every nerve in your whole body eats
sodium and potassium, so you'll have essentially brain death because
(32:52):
of nutrient depositions.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
So yeah, and that's important point that Chimes bringing up
is that basically it's not the salts just not in
your blood. It's used for the cells to signal each other.
It's a communication network. So basically the sodium chloride potassium
are used for cell signaling both and intra cell signaling too,
(33:17):
and so it's vitally important.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And I'm so fascinated by the bicarbonate piece as well.
I know I've actually just started this week experimenting with
that a little bit after reading some data about that.
But I would love to hear your take on that.
Is that something that you feel like can be beneficial,
and if so, are there any guidelines related to that.
Because I just started this, I don't feel like I
have enough days under my belt to know if I
feel a difference yet.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
So I would say that the guiding principle there that
I think most people are not aware of is that
when you are shallow breathing or mouth breathing, that you're
actually getting rid of xss CO two and the CO
two to buy carbonate ratio is really important, and so
(34:02):
you have to have adequate CO two in order to
release your oxygen to the cells. You know, through the
artery they'll for proper oxygenation, you actually need to have
enough CO two. And so what's driving a lot of
that is is I guess that's the easiest way to
understand that is that Whenever someone that I meet starts
(34:24):
having trouble with their kidneys as they're getting older, they
have starting to progress down on a kidney disease, then
the first thing you should do is take suitium bicarbonate.
So it is just baking soda a teaspoon in water,
eight ounces a day and many times will stop the
progression of on a kidie disease. And so having adequate
(34:48):
both CO two and by carbonate for your pH is
really important. And I guess I should plug my own
paper was We're the first to find out that a
sodium bicarbonate transporter in the kidney that reabsorbs both sodium
and bicarbonate. There's a genetic defect in people that is
(35:10):
the most highly associated genetic association with salt sensitivity, though
when that is low, then you have salt sensitivity.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
This is so fascinating. I've taken so many notes that
I love that we really got to dive into this topic.
I'm also excited that we're going to get to record
another episode that really dives deep into the science of
supplements and bioavailability and something that I've been taking for
years called sulfur faint. But before we put a bone
in the topic of salt and magnesium and potassium and
bicarbonate and all the things we've covered today. Is there
(35:40):
anything I haven't asked you or still remaining misconceptions or
parting thoughts that you think are really important before we
wrap up the conversation around salt.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Yeah, I mean, just because I'm in both worlds of
salt and supplements. I think one of the maybe if
we want to have a little primer saying you know,
aware it's coming up soon, is that it's pretty understudied
and unknown the connection between the supplements that are commonly
(36:09):
taken and what they do to salt, And so maybe
a little piece of information is I always person to
discover that in inversalt sensitive individuals on a low salt diet,
you reduce ner F two. N r F two is
a really important transcription factor that regulates all kinds of
(36:31):
things we'll probably talk about later. But sulforaphane is the
best inducer of nterer F two. So even if you
were an inver salt sensitive and hate a little bit
too little ossalt, you can protect yourself by having some
sulfor fhane on hand so that it doesn't damage your kidney.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I think, is it true? Also, potentially more people die
from to little salt versus too much.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
So I think it's hard to because it's unrecognized. Yeah,
hard to know. But with the mortality data from very
large studies, I know this is a contested piece of information.
But when you measure the amount of sodium that's in
urine in a very large number of people, under a
(37:21):
certain amount of salt in the urine is associated with
much steeper gradient of death than the gradient as you're
going higher in salt. Though, it's more dangerous to go
lower than average in terms of mortality than it is
are going above the normal amount of sodium.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
And that's important because you know as people age, the
baby Brewers, first thing they do if they go into
a nursing home is you put the model the It's
just like, you know, what is that doing to them?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
So yeah, and that's a protected group of people. So
it's unstudied, and so we actually tried to put in
agreement this year and we're unsuccessful to try and measure
that in nursing homes.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That's so interesting. Well, I've got full show notes that
I've been taking notes while we've been talking as well
as links to you guys and your research and your products,
which I know we haven't even gotten to get deep
into in this episode, but we will in our follow
up episode, so please stay tuned and join me for
that episode as well. But for this one, David John,
thank you so much. This has been so fascinating. I
learned a lot and I'm so excited for our second round.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Katie, thanks so much for having us, thanks for your
great questions, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And thank you for listening, and I hope you will
join me again on the next episode of the Wellness
Mama podcast. If you're enjoying these interviews, would you please
take two minutes to leave a rating or review on
iTunes for me. Doing this helps more people to find
the podcast, which means even more moms and families could
benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time and
(38:55):
thanks as always for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com