Salt: The Wrongfully Accused Mineral
Salt has been demonized for decades. We were told to fear it, avoid it, cut it out. Labels warned us. Doctors echoed the concern. Low-sodium everything filled the shelves. Meanwhile, hypertension quietly became an epidemic, and our collective health continued to decline. In my clinical practice, I’ve seen something that turns this entire narrative on its head: many of my patients lowered their blood pressure by increasing their salt intake, while others worsened their health by cutting salt too aggressively.
The Missing Link: Insulin, Not Just Salt
Let me explain. Blood pressure is not just a salt story. It is an insulin story. Every time we eat carbohydrates, especially refined or sweetened ones, insulin signals the kidneys to retain sodium, increase fluid volume, and raise blood pressure. This is not an accident; it is how the body prepares to digest and absorb nutrients.
However, in a high-carb, insulin-resistant body, this signaling gets stuck in overdrive. Here is the irony: the more people cut salt while continuing to eat processed carbs and sugars, the more the body responds by clinging even tighter to the little sodium it has left, increasing sympathetic tone, triggering adrenal stress, and ultimately driving blood pressure higher.
The Salt Flip: A Clinical Perspective
I’ve guided countless patients through what I call the salt flip, which involves increasing unrefined, mineral-rich salt intake while lowering processed carbohydrate consumption. The results include:
- Lower resting blood pressure
- Better electrolyte balance
- Reduced leg swelling
- Clearer cognition
- Improved energy
This is not about dumping table salt on everything. It is about using full-spectrum salt, the kind that still contains up to 84 trace minerals that were used to be part of the human diet for millennia.
Celtic Sea Salt, Redmond Real Salt, and Baja Gold are among those I use in the clinic.
Salt Through History: A Forgotten Multivitamin
Historically, salt was our multivitamin. Cultures traded it, preserved food with it, and revered it. It wasn’t bleached, stripped, or refined like modern salt. It was grey, pink, beige—full of natural minerals from seawater and earth.
Then the salt myth began. As heart disease and hypertension rose, mostly due to ultra-processed food and sugar, we blamed the salt shaker instead of the sweet roll.
In doing so, we removed one of the last reliable sources of trace minerals from our diets. The results were predictable:
- Fatigue
- Cramping
- Low pressure in some
- High pressure in others
- A strange paradox of salt-depleted, fluid-retaining, inflamed patients
For Manual Osteopaths: Rethinking Sodium
For those who practice osteopathy, it is important to remember that sodium is not a villain. It is a critical player in:
- Muscle tone
- Fascial hydration
- Nerve conduction
- Adrenal balance
When patients are dizzy, weak, or hypertensive, I do not just ask what they are avoiding. I ask what they are missing. Often, what they are missing is salt.
We must rethink our reflexes around sodium, question blanket advice, look deeper into insulin signaling, dietary patterns, and mineral depletion, and return to the roots of clinical logic. Supply what the body is calling for, not what the mainstream warns against without context.
Salt, when understood and properly applied, is not the problem. For many, it is the beginning of the solution.
