Sodium Sensitivity is a Potassium Deficiency
Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast
Dr. Eric Berg
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2023
⏱️ 4 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Let's talk about salt sensitivity and the dangers of consuming too much salt.
Consuming too much sodium can lead to certain health problems, including:
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Stroke
• Edema
• Increased mortality
The body tends to hold sodium when a person has a potassium deficiency. You can even have salt sensitivity, which causes you to retain sodium and water. But, again, this could be caused by a potassium deficiency.
Sodium and potassium work together in the body. The daily requirements for sodium are 2300 mg, but the daily requirements for potassium are 4700 mg. You really need twice as much potassium as sodium.
Many people aren't consuming enough potassium in their diet but consume a lot of sodium. A genetic problem can also cause some people to be salt sensitive.
I believe one of the best things you can do for salt sensitivity is to increase your potassium. I don't think a low-salt diet is the answer. You don't want to end up having a potassium deficiency and a sodium deficiency.
You need sodium and potassium to support the body in many different ways. If you're deficient in these key electrolytes, you could experience arrhythmias, fatigue, and weakness.
Overall, you need sodium, but you need a lot more potassium.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I want to talk about the dangers of too much salt or too much sodium, okay? We have heart disease, |
| 0:05.9 | we have high blood pressure, we have stroke, edema, increased mortality. It sounds pretty scary, |
| 0:12.9 | right? Well, these things occur not for the reason you think. I mean, the question is, |
| 0:18.8 | is it really too much sodium? Is that what's causing the problem? In reality, our body tends to hold |
| 0:25.7 | sodium if there's a potassium deficiency. In fact, there's something called salt sensitivity, |
| 0:33.2 | where the body is retaining sodium. But the reason why you retain sodium and therefore water |
| 0:39.2 | is because you have a potassium deficiency. This is something that's really overlooked and not |
| 0:44.8 | talked about too much. We're so focused on sodium, we kind of forget about this other mineral |
| 0:49.8 | called potassium. But sodium potassium always work together in the body. It's kind of like a |
| 0:54.3 | teeter totter. The requirements for sodium per day are 2300 milligrams. But the requirements for |
| 1:02.6 | potassium are 4700. That's actually more than double. So this ratio is really, really important, |
| 1:11.0 | okay? Two to one. Twice as much potassium is sodium. And guess what? You will no longer be |
| 1:17.0 | salt sensitive. In fact, the symptoms of this excess sodium will disappear when you increase |
| 1:23.3 | your potassium. You see the majority of the population has this problem of too much sodium |
| 1:30.3 | and not enough potassium, okay? They don't consume enough greens. They eat a lot of processed foods. |
| 1:35.9 | You get your sodium from junk foods, refined foods, and restaurant foods. Very few people ever |
| 1:42.0 | consume enough potassium foods, right? They think if I have a banana a day, that's going to do it. |
| 1:46.9 | A banana has about 300 milligrams. Now remember, you need 4700, okay? You'd have to have more |
| 1:53.6 | than 12 bananas. And then you're going to get all the sugar, which is not going to happen. |
| 1:58.2 | So you have this situation where people are just really heavy on the sodium, |
| 2:02.5 | but very, very low in the potassium. And this is where we have the problem. On top of that, |
| 2:07.0 | okay, 38% of the population has a genetic variation with a certain gene called the ACE gene, |
... |
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