Anti-Aging Advice: 99 Steps to 100 by Walter M. Bortz, M.D.

You are not a freshwater creature. You are a saltwater creature. All your cells live in a salty lake, like the oceans where life first evolved. The salt content of your body fluids is two teaspoonfuls per quart.

With civilization has come the increased availability of salt at cheap prices. We have learned to use salt at almost every step of the food process, from preservation to processing, preparation, and consumption.

Salt Intake
Your salt intake varies from one to fifteen teaspoonfuls per day. This is in contrast to what your hunter-gatherer ancestors ate (around a quarter teaspoonful). Ordinarily, your kidneys manage to balance the varied amount of salt you take against the need for that day. During a bout of diarrhea, which depletes you rapidly of a lot of salt, or on a very heavy sweating day during which two teaspoonfuls can be lost in the sweat, your kidneys shut down salt excretion to prevent further loss. Conversely, when you consume a heavier than average load, the kidneys simply get rid of it.

Balancing Act
But what if the balancing act is imperfect? What if too much is lost or too much is saved? If the concentration of sodium in your body fluids becomes too low as the result of excess sweating, vomiting, or diarrhea, you become weak, confused, and even delirious. If your sodium content is too acutely high, you become dehydrated. If it is chronically high, you can develop high blood pressure.

There is clear evidence that in those countries in which salt intake is high, particularly Japan, incidence of high blood pressure is exaggerated. A further compounding feature is obesity, a condition in which the kidneys seem particularly prone to hold onto salt. Therefore, being overweight and eating a lot of salt in our diet is a bad idea. The picture becomes even worse if you're underexercising, because exercise in and of itself protects against high blood pressure. The worse combination, then, is the underexercised, fat person who eats a lot of salt.

Bottom Line:
To prevent this predicament, stay slim, exercise, and watch your salt intake. A minimal requirement per day is about a quarter teaspoonful. Never salt before tasting. Use pepper, garlic or onion powder, or herbs as substitutes. Don't put the salt shaker on the table. Beware of convenience foods, as they are usually thick with salt. Also, be aware that many medicines, particularly those given for the treatment of arthritis, have a marked tendency to promote the body's salt retention. Read food labels. Eat fresh foods that have a very little salt. And use only half of the salt called for in recipes.

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