Most Americans consume too much sodium (3,400-3,600 mg/day average, with some consuming up to 9,000-12,000 mg/day) and not enough potassium (2,320-3,016 mg/day average).
Recommended daily intake by the FDA and NIH: 4,700 mg potassium, less than 2,300 mg sodium. Quite a few studies suggest optimal intake is as high as 8000 mg potassium, and as low as 500 mg sodium.
Potassium helps counteract the negative effects of sodium, as it helps the body detox sodium. Conversely, excess sodium lowers vital potassium.
Excess sodium can lead to cellular dehydration, edema, and many common health problems.
Increasing potassium and lowering Sodium is crucial for improved and optimal health.
Benefits of Potassium:
- Supports optimal brain function, cognitive performance, and mood.
- Facilitates nerve impulse transmission.
- Maintains proper hydration levels and fluid balance
- Essential for normal muscle contraction, repair, and recovery
- Supports optimal heart function and cardiovascular health
- Helps regulate blood pressure and reduce hypertension risk
- Promotes bone health and reduces osteoporosis risk
- Assists in energy production and metabolism
- Supports digestive health and prevents constipation
- Aids in weight management and appetite control
- Supports kidney function and reduces kidney stone risk
- Promotes healthy vision and skin
- Supports immune system function
- May help alleviate allergy symptoms
Dangers of High Sodium:
Cardiovascular Issues:
*Increased risk of high blood pressure (hypertension)
*Higher risk of heart disease and stroke
*Potential for irregular heartbeat or arrhythmias
*Increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and early death
*Asthma symptoms
*Causes “air hunger”.
Causes Being Fat:
*Fluid Retention and Edema
*Swelling in extremities (hands, feet, ankles)
*Puffiness in face and body
*Bloating and water retention
*Increased inflammation in the body
*Potential link to obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and kidney problems.
*Low energy, can’t workout.
Kidney Problems:
*Increased strain on kidneys
*Higher risk of kidney disease
*Greater likelihood of kidney stone formation
Dehydration:
Cellular dehydration despite fluid retention
Increased thirst
Electrolyte Imbalance:
Disruption of normal sodium-potassium balance
Potential for severe electrolyte disturbances in extreme cases
Muscles:
*Less endurance, less running, fewer reps during weightlifting
*More muscle burning from exercise
*More muscle soreness after workouts
*More muscle wasting and smaller muscles
*Muscle cramping, cramps, twitching
Neurological Effects:
Headaches
Cognitive impairment
Potential mood changes
Bone Health:
Increased calcium excretion, potentially leading to osteoporosis
Weakening of bones over time
Digestive Issues:
Increased risk of stomach cancer
Potential for nausea, vomiting, and stomach discomfort
Sleep Disturbances:
Difficulty sleeping
Increased nighttime urination
Other Health Risks:
Negative impact on skin health
Mechanisms of Action
Sodium-potassium pump: moves sodium out of the cell, and potassium into the cell. This is in all cells, but especially for nerve cells.
Potassium hydrates the cells. Sodium dehydrates the cells.
Potassium is the cellular nutrient. Sodium is the cellular toxin.
ATP (adenosine triphosphate) production: Essential for sodium-potassium pump function.
20% (in normal cells) to 75% (in nerve cells) of cellular ATP goes to run the sodium-potassium pump!
(This is why excess sodium destroys your body’s energy levels, and wrecks the nerves. It is increasingly difficult to pump against the gradient, or as salt levels outside the cells increases.)
Increased ATP production appears to accelerate sodium detoxification.
Nutrients that increase ATP production may cause temporary side effects of high sodium due to rapid sodium excretion.
Nutrient Interactions
Copper, magnesium, B vitamins, citrate, creatine, and potassium can increase ATP production.
These nutrients may cause temporary side effects like diarrhea or racing heart due to sodium detoxification.
Copper deficiency is associated with various cardiovascular issues
Potassium helps the body absorb and utilize copper.
Practical Implications:
It can take 30 days or more of 3 grams of potassium per day to restore the body’s level of potassium from 150 grams of potassium to the more optimal 250 grams of potassium. And that’s only if you don’t consume high-sodium meals during the transition process.
Sodium is addictive and causes nerve problems, distorted thinking, and cognitive impairment.
A thirst, hunger, or craving for salt is not an indication that you need it, but an indication you are addicted.
A gradual transition to lower sodium and higher potassium intake is recommended.
Adequate hydration is crucial during sodium reduction and potassium increase.
Individual responses may vary; monitor symptoms and adjust intake accordingly.
Focus on whole, unprocessed foods to naturally reduce sodium intake and increase potassium intake
Slowly increase dosages of supplementation of ATP-supporting nutrients: Copper, magnesium, B vitamins, citrate, creatine, and potassium
Read food labels to identify hidden sources of sodium in processed foods
Use herbs instead of salt to flavor foods. (Salt addiction destroys the ability of the body to taste the real flavor of foods.)
Be aware of the cumulative effect of sodium intake from all sources throughout the day
Common concerns:
This information is not advocating a “zero salt” diet, which is impossible. Most people will struggle to get sodium intake down to 1500 to 2000 mg per day. 500 mg might be more ideal, and almost unreachable.
Many foods inherently contain sodium. There is 70 mg of sodium in one egg. There is about 350 mg sodium in a half pound of unsalted beef.
You don’t have to replace sodium when you sweat. As your body lowers sodium naturally, the sweat will contain less and less sodium.
The body makes aldosterone to hold on to and retain sodium in the kidneys as sodium levels go lower.
Risks of low sodium are often overstated, often the risks of diuretic drugs, not a low sodium and high potassium diet.
Risks of high potassium also overstated, and are often merely correlations (which cannot prove causation) of high potassium in the blood, which happen from, or during, body traumas and injury, not from higher dietary potassium intake.
Extreme vegan diets might be naturally low in sodium, high in potassium, and greens do help the body excrete sodium. This information might be less useful for them, since they are already inherently following it with their dietary choices. We don’t recommend vegan diets, however, for a long list of reasons; they become low in zinc, B12, lose the ability to digest beef, and suffer from cognitive impairment and anxiety, symptoms of low zinc.
Specific guidance:
Start with 1/8th of a teaspoon of potassium chloride, added to a drink like juice or water. Over a month, slowly increase your daily dose up to 1.5 teaspoons total daily, providing an additional 4500 mg of potassium.
We take NuSalt brand potassium chloride, it is the cheapest we can find.
POTASSIUM CHLORIDE:
https://www.amazon.com/Nu-Salt-Substitute-Shaker-Ounce-Pack/dp/B07MVJTL81/
Lower your intake of high-salt foods such as soy sauces, other sauces, salted foods, salted meats, cured meats, sandwich meats, and salt as supplements including both sea salt and Himalayan salt. Cheese and bread are also especially high in salt, with up to 250 mg of sodium in each slice of cheese or bread, so eat those foods in moderation. A single medium pizza topped with pepperoni (salted meats) can contain 4500 mg of salt.
Other ways to help to detox salt:
Leafy greens such as in salads or green smoothies. Salad dressings, though, are often high in salt.
Sweating: such as through exercise, sunbathing, or the sauna can help you lose 2 grams of salt with a good sweat.
Drink more distilled water. Tap water and mineral water both contain sodium as the main mineral at about 150 mg of sodium per liter.
Finally, and this is a big one: Stop eating out at restaurants. Most of this food is heavily salted. Instead, cook your own beef at home, and season it with potassium chloride, instead of sodium chloride.
My personal testimony:
I bought into the false idea that “salt is good for you” from many alternative health gurus pushing the so-called good Celtic and Himalayan salts. It was said that salt hydrates, which is the opposite of the truth. It hydrates the body but is cellularly dehydrating. I bought into this myth from around 2015 until around 2022.
At the worst, I was attempting “salt flushes” which mimic an enema, as the saltwater solution of a teaspoon of salt in a glass of water (in up to 2-3 glasses) is flushing right through the body as liquid water. My muscle endurance crashed. My muscles were burning in the gym. I was thirsty all the time. My cardio ability crashed. I stopped sprinting and jogging. I could barely do about 13 squats with no weight. I had been doing 20 squats of 200 pounds just a few years before, so what happened? I did not know. How could I write a book on copper or health if my health is so poor? I was humiliated, confused, and stuck in a rut.
At my wife’s worst, she was drinking multiple adrenal cocktails, with potassium, sodium, in orange juice. She was having horrible racing heart issues, and bleeding problems with very long periods, low iron, anemia, and she thought she might die. I was searching for everything to help her figure that out, and part of the solution was to stop these adrenal cocktails. Sodium citrate is used to prevent blood from coagulating when you donate blood to blood banks, so this combination contributed to her bleeding problems. Also, taking more iron was depleting her copper, which is also needed to stop bleeding. For more on her story on these subjects:
https://revealingfraud.com/2022/08/health/copper-iron-and-anemia/
https://revealingfraud.com/2024/03/health/how-to-fix-racing-heart-problems-arrhythmia-heart-palpitations-irregular-heart-beats/
As I was first experimenting with increased copper above 30 mg, and with topical copper, around 2020, I continued to experiment with high salt, in part, because I wanted to gain weight in the gym, and I knew that salt is a “weight gain” supplement. I developed this weird “air hunger” where I could not catch my breath as I was walking home from the gym. Running was completely unthinkable. I did not know the cause, so I thought my muscles were getting too big or something. I thought it might be the copper, which is also known to help muscle growth. I did not realize it was the salt. I wrote about this in the introduction to my book, “The Copper Revolution”, which was still a bit of a mystery, but I pressed on anyway.
My wife was supplementing 1/8th of a teaspoon of Celtic salt in her coffee. I also wanted to supplement a bit of salt, and this was much less than the recommended full teaspoon, so I thought it would be safe.
Eventually, due to my wife’s problems with racing heart symptoms, I realized we should cut out more salt, and so we did, around January, 2021. No more salt in the coffee, and no more salt flushes. But I continued to eat salty foods; salted meats, salted crackers, and eating out, without fear, because this was still “much less salt” by avoiding the extra. And I continued the 1/8th potassium per each 1-2 cups of coffee. I finally got the directions right, to increase potassium and lower salt, but not the magnitude. I just did not do enough of each change We needed to make bigger changes, but I did not realize that at the time.
Eventually, air hunger hit me again on an easy walk, after eating nearly an entire box of salted cheese crackers after lunch. I was hyperventilating and I could not catch my breath after less than a 30-minute walk. This was crazy to me. What was going on? I’m fit. I lift weights. This can’t be aging! This can’t be from lifting weights. It took me a few days to realize it might have been from the salt! Only one way to know. Time to test again! No more crackers then!
Soon after, I was encouraged from seeing others testify about their great results experimenting with higher potassium, up to 5000 mg a day. I finally took more measures to start lowering salt in my diet, and increase the potassium.
It took me about a month to increase up to three half-teaspoons of potassium chloride during the day, a half teaspoon in each of 3 drinks. At first, it gave me some nausea at only 1/4 teaspoon, and I had to pause with that dose. Then time did the trick.
I cut out the salted crackers. I was still unable to cut out the salted meats for lunch. (For a while, I tried rinsing it off in tap water, but that didn’t really work.) When I finally cut out the salted meat, which added 800 mg of salt, things got a lot better.
Soon, I was able, and eager, to start running again, and with my wife, Jennifer, she started running with me. We started our first 5k race in February, 2024. My cardio ability dramatically increased. The pumps I got in the gym were bigger than ever. All forms of cramps or muscle tightness left. No tight hamstrings, ever! Soreness from lifting weights in the gym went down dramatically. My overall athleticism came back strongly. I’m so well hydrated, I can run a 5k without needing to drink any water. Our times are not yet fantastic, about 33 minutes.
I went from hyperventilating on a 30 minute easy walk, to running a full 33 minutes. Within a few months. At age 54. That is a dramatic change.
See the sources for this article in my prior essays here: