Is sodium important?
Domchod
Posts: 17 Member
My recommended amount here on fitnesspal is 2300 mg of sodium, but I only get about 200 - 300... I have no idea where to get more (apart from eating salt 
) and I don't know if I even should. What are the benefits and disadvantages?
) and I don't know if I even should. What are the benefits and disadvantages? 0
Replies
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200-300 sounds very low to me. I'd probably suggest double-checking the entries you use to be sure they're complete.0
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OP: what does your diary look like on a daily basis? 200-300 sounds very very low.
Are you going by the MFP entries themselves or are you looking on the nutritional labels on your actual food items?0 -
it's kind of an essential mineral.
somehow i doubt you are only getting 200 - 300 mg.0 -
The 2300 is a maximum not a goal, but you should be getting much more than 200-300 mgs. the more you workout the more sodium you need as well, as you sweat it out. I am guessing a lot of your entries are user entered and left sodium blank.0
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cwolfman13 wrote: »it's kind of an essential mineral.
somehow i doubt you are only getting 200 - 300 mg.
This ^^ It seems impossible to get so little, but if you really are, then add salt. How much you need varies from person to person, but I'm guessing most people need more than 300 mg.0 -
It is important but it's very hard to have problems with too low sodium levels unless you have certain health conditions or for some reason decided to abuse diuretics or "cleanses". Sodium is almost in everything, but maybe your entries are not accurate enough to have it. If you have salt on anything you eat you should be fine. 2300 is actually an upper limit not a goal to hit. It's for those concerned about their blood pressure.0
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In reality, if you are healthy and active, 3-6K mgs are ideal.0
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amusedmonkey wrote: »It is important but it's very hard to have problems with too low sodium levels unless you have certain health conditions or for some reason decided to abuse diuretics or "cleanses". Sodium is almost in everything, but maybe your entries are not accurate enough to have it. If you have salt on anything you eat you should be fine. 2300 is actually an upper limit not a goal to hit. It's for those concerned about their blood pressure.
You don't have to abuse diuretics to develop low blood sodium. Routine use can cause it if you aren't careful with your sodium intake.0 -
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
Agreed. Probably not. At least not till the RDA changes their recommendations since a lot of people take that as the gospel.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1311889#t=articleTopThe Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study is a large-scale epidemiologic cohort study that enrolled and followed 156,424 persons, 35 to 70 years of age, residing in 628 urban and rural communities in 17 low-, middle-, and high-income countries (Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe).20-23 Selection of the participants is described in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org. Recruitment began in January 2003. For the current analysis, we included 101,945 participants who collected early-morning fasting urine samples suitable for analysis. The study was coordinated by the Population Health Research Institute, Hamilton Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.In conclusion, we investigated the association of estimated sodium and potassium excretion with the risk of death and cardiovascular events in a large, international, prospective cohort study. An estimated sodium intake between 3 g per day and 6 g per day was associated with a lower risk of death and cardiovascular events than either a higher or lower estimated level of sodium intake. As compared with an estimated potassium excretion of less than 1.50 g per day, higher potassium excretion was associated with a reduction in the risk of the composite outcome.
One thing is for certain, getting too much or too little is definitely not good. What is too high and too low is the mystery.0 -
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Sodium requirements are different based on where you live. It's critical in hot climates where a lot of salt is sweated out. Hence, the hot salty sauces from India.0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
Agreed. Probably not. At least not till the RDA changes their recommendations since a lot of people take that as the gospel.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1311889#t=articleTopThe Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study is a large-scale epidemiologic cohort study that enrolled and followed 156,424 persons, 35 to 70 years of age, residing in 628 urban and rural communities in 17 low-, middle-, and high-income countries (Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe).20-23 Selection of the participants is described in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org. Recruitment began in January 2003. For the current analysis, we included 101,945 participants who collected early-morning fasting urine samples suitable for analysis. The study was coordinated by the Population Health Research Institute, Hamilton Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.In conclusion, we investigated the association of estimated sodium and potassium excretion with the risk of death and cardiovascular events in a large, international, prospective cohort study. An estimated sodium intake between 3 g per day and 6 g per day was associated with a lower risk of death and cardiovascular events than either a higher or lower estimated level of sodium intake. As compared with an estimated potassium excretion of less than 1.50 g per day, higher potassium excretion was associated with a reduction in the risk of the composite outcome.
One thing is for certain, getting too much or too little is definitely not good. What is too high and too low is the mystery.
Unlike many people on MFP, I am a fan of epidemiologic data. But one study would never be enough to change a general recommendation. Especially a US recommendation when so many of the study participants were not American.0 -
In the question "Is it important?" The answer is, you can't live without it. Your nerve endings don't connect, there are filaments with microscopic spaces in between them. So how does the signal from the brain, jump between the spaces? It's through saline in the body that allows the messages to jump from filament to filament.
My MIL severely restricted salt for years and years and she developed a condition where her body lacked salt to such a degree, her heart was stopping. The automatic message from the brain couldn't get to her heart to tell it to keep beating. She now has to daily ingest salt tablets on top of her regular diet to make sure she doesn't get into trouble.
That said, it's easy to get too much because there is sodium in everything, especially processed food. If you eat out, if you eat anything (not marked low sodium of course) from a can or a box, you're getting a ton of sodium.
Please note, I have no idea what the medical terms or the technical jargon is concerning my MIL. I only remember how odd the whole thing was and the general "gist" of what was going on.0 -
quiltlovinlisa wrote: »In the question "Is it important?" The answer is, you can't live without it. Your nerve endings don't connect, there are filaments with microscopic spaces in between them. So how does the signal from the brain, jump between the spaces? It's through saline in the body that allows the messages to jump from filament to filament.
My MIL severely restricted salt for years and years and she developed a condition where her body lacked salt to such a degree, her heart was stopping. The automatic message from the brain couldn't get to her heart to tell it to keep beating. She now has to daily ingest salt tablets on top of her regular diet to make sure she doesn't get into trouble.
That said, it's easy to get too much because there is sodium in everything, especially processed food. If you eat out, if you eat anything (not marked low sodium of course) from a can or a box, you're getting a ton of sodium.
Please note, I have no idea what the medical terms or the technical jargon is concerning my MIL. I only remember how odd the whole thing was and the general "gist" of what was going on.
Low sodium levels are called hyponatremia.Hyponatremia is a condition that occurs when the level of sodium in your blood is abnormally low. Sodium is an electrolyte, and it helps regulate the amount of water that's in and around your cells.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyponatremia/basics/definition/con-20031445
Hope your MIL is doing well
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My recommended amount here on fitnesspal is 2300 mg of sodium, but I only get about 200 - 300... I have no idea where to get more (apart from eating salt ) and I don't know if I even should. What are the benefits and disadvantages?
I would bet you are eating more than you think, probably way more than the recommended maximum. Many entried in the database simply do not have the sodium at all.0 -
quiltlovinlisa wrote: »In the question "Is it important?" The answer is, you can't live without it. Your nerve endings don't connect, there are filaments with microscopic spaces in between them. So how does the signal from the brain, jump between the spaces? It's through saline in the body that allows the messages to jump from filament to filament.
My MIL severely restricted salt for years and years and she developed a condition where her body lacked salt to such a degree, her heart was stopping. The automatic message from the brain couldn't get to her heart to tell it to keep beating. She now has to daily ingest salt tablets on top of her regular diet to make sure she doesn't get into trouble.
That said, it's easy to get too much because there is sodium in everything, especially processed food. If you eat out, if you eat anything (not marked low sodium of course) from a can or a box, you're getting a ton of sodium.
Please note, I have no idea what the medical terms or the technical jargon is concerning my MIL. I only remember how odd the whole thing was and the general "gist" of what was going on.
Low sodium levels are called hyponatremia.Hyponatremia is a condition that occurs when the level of sodium in your blood is abnormally low. Sodium is an electrolyte, and it helps regulate the amount of water that's in and around your cells.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyponatremia/basics/definition/con-20031445
Hope your MIL is doing well
Ahhhh I am guilty of being too lazy to look it up. (blushes) Nice to have the right term.
She takes her sodium and doesn't have a problem, thank you.
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yes it's essential for cellular membrane potential, transportation, and maintains cellular volume0
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About the only way that you could be getting this little sodium is if you eat nothing but whole foods (no restaurant food, no packaged or convenience foods) and use no salt or salt-containing condiment, and eat no pickled or brined food. I got more than 200 mg of sodium yesterday from raw fruits, veggies, a couple of eggs, and a splash of milk in my coffee (and even then, those foods accounted for less than 400 calories of what I ate yesterday, so if everything I ate was similar, and I ate 1200 calories, I would have had more than 600 mg of sodium from whole, no-salt-added foods).
If by any chance you really are getting that small an amount of sodium, you might want to pick up a salt shaker -- not just for the sodium, but for iodine, unless you eat a fair amount of seafood. (Make sure it's regular table salt with added iodine.)0 -
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A dash of salt added to anything is more than what you claim to have in a day. Sodium is apart of your electrolyte balance. If you're working out especially.0
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Sodium also helps your body deal with stress and when I say stress I specifically mean heat stress. Sodium helps your body deal with things like hot weather, taking hot showers, taking hot baths, taking a dip in the jacuzzi, etc.0
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I found that many database entries just don't fill in the sodium amount for one reason or another. You're probably fine.0
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stevencloser wrote: »I found that many database entries just don't fill in the sodium amount for one reason or another. You're probably fine.
A problem is that in Europe nutritional labels don't list the sodium content in milligrams, but the salt content in grams. Therefore many entries are missing or incorrect.
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cwolfman13 wrote: »it's kind of an essential mineral.
somehow i doubt you are only getting 200 - 300 mg.
Yes--not enough sodium and you die.0
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