Almond Milk - SODIUM!?

Uh, what? Where did you get that information? Almond Breeze has 180mg of sodium per cup. Silk has 160 mg. Skim milk has about 130 mg. What's the problem?

Also, unless you have a medical condition that causes you to have to limit sodium, there's no reason to limit sodium.

"Real" milk has sodium, too. Not quite as much as almond milk, but there isn't much difference as long as you aren't drinking gallons of almond milk a day.

Being overly worried about 80mg here and there sounds like a really good way to end up with a sodium deficiency.

Being overly worried about 80mg here and there sounds like a really good way to end up with a sodium deficiency.

You only need about 150mg a day - doubt anyone in a modern society is going to have a sodium deficiency.

My mother (who is elderly) has been in the hospital 3 times with a sodium deficiency. It's not pretty.

Hyponatremia has some nasty symptoms, yes, but you'll rarely get hyponatremia from a lack of sodium in the diet. It will often be caused by kidney problems and other health issues. Seeing how it's your elderly mother I don't doubt that is the case...

Actually, no. She does have heart problems but that didn't contribute to the sodium deficiency, only in that she has always eaten a very low sodium diet. Each time she was hospitalized they ran her through a battery of tests and the results were she had low sodium levels but no other contributing factors.

She has to be very careful not to drink too much water and not to limit her salt intake too much or she will end up back in the hospital. Very difficult for someone who has heart problems and is elderly. Low sodium (and the associated craziness that goes with it) or congestive heart failure? It's a fine line and if she strays too far either way -- too much salt or not enough of it -- she'll end up with one of them.

Old age is a bear.

Appreciate this conversation, and this is indicative of the state of nutritional science. Please let's not argue with each other. The fact is: we're not all that sure how sodium and potassium (and potentially other micro-nutrients) work together. And to suggest that we are sure about such things is misleading.

Yes, there seem to be a few studies that counter the evidence that higher levels of sodium are problematic. Interesting enough, though, some of them seem to have lost their datasets. This is a challenge: if we can't produce our datasets, our study/conclusion(s) is/are useless and potentially misleading (as a library professional this drives me nuts--although my best friends have rightly indicated this is "not a long trip.") That aside:

On another note (re: kidney function) if your loved one is on a diuretic (yep, diuretics flush sodium and potassium and probably a bunch of other things--we just don't normally test for them from your system), don't discount the possibility that the medication is the problem. Probably an ad hoc observation, but my own loved own ended up in the hospital (multiple times) with similar symptoms, not from hyponatremia (which is actually more common in runners who "over-hydrate" during long runs--especially football players and marathoners--check out reference on "gator-aide") but with low potassium.

Some notes on the study cited:

"However, the AHA called the IOM's conclusion "incomplete" because it did not highlight the fact that scientific evidence has shown that eating too much sodium can increase blood pressure.
"While the American Heart Association commends the IOM for taking on the challenging topic of sodium consumption, we disagree with key conclusions," AHA's CEO Nancy Brown said in a statement.
The non-profit organization Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) added in a statement that they hope the IOM's findings won't stop the government, food industry, health professionals and consumers from pushing to lower sodium levels. As it stands, people eat way above the recommended 2,300 milligram limit, and the IOM themselves said in 2010 that more government action needs to be taken to lower sodium consumption.
CSPI published a study in JAMA Internal Medicine showing that packaged and restaurant food have not lowered their sodium content that much in recent years. The average sodium level in 402 random packaged foods only went down 3.5 percent between 2005 and 2011. Seventy-eight items found in chain restaurants actually increased salt content by 2.6 in the same period.
"At restaurants, you can get roughly 2,000 milligrams of sodium from just one burrito, a single-serve pizza, or an order of kung pao chicken, and at least 1,000 milligrams from a typical sandwich or burger," CSPI Nutrition Director Bonnie Liebman wrote. "As the IOM concluded in 2010 -- and as our new study published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine confirms--getting down to 2,300 will be nearly impossible until the government phases in reasonable limits on the sodium content of foods."