I originally did an introductory thread on the concerns with low sodium raw vegan diets a few months ago on my website, and here on this forum l will post the second part of the topic l just finished.

Below are the biggest and most significant findings on sodium done so far reported in the most respected peer reviewed medical journals. These findings put serious question over current recommendations for sodium and suggest that the current RDA is much lower than what their testing suggests. It is advised currently that people take less than 2 grams of sodium per day, but these recommendations are highly flawed due to these recommendations being done on short term studies of people mainly with increased risk of CVD and not taking into account the relationship of sodium with potassium.

This landmark paper is now suggesting from 4.93 - 6 grams of sodium with a strong suggestion of taking slightly over 2 grams of potassium to keep CVD risk well managed in relation to sodium and potassium.

The study below was done on almost 102,000 people over a period of almost 4 years. I suggest people spend an hour and read the entire study.


CONCLUSIONS


In this study in which sodium intake was estimated on the basis of measured urinary excretion, 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, as compared with either a higher or lower estimated level of intake. As compared with an estimate potassium excretion that was less than 1.50 g per day, higher potassium excretion was associated with a lower risk of death and cardiovascular events.



Urinary Sodium and Potassium Excretion, Mortality, and Cardiovascular Events

Martin O’Donnell, M.B., Ph.D., Andrew Mente, Ph.D et al
[fhs.mcmaster.ca]



Now….the study is not perfect because it has flaws, but it was the most comprehensive ever done up until 2011.



The message for raw vegans


As we know, raw vegans struggle to get the RDA for sodium unless they juice enormous amounts of vegetables each day, but even reaching the RDA is now in question. Given that vegans are clearly not living longer than anyone else, and given that many raw vegan struggle to thrive over the long term, and given that taking less than recommended sodium levels does increase risk factors of early death and CVD according to the latest research, and given that our sweat is naturally salty….can we afford to get on our high horse and say we eat well enough to counteract any potential problems of being on the very low side of sodium consumption? Can we be so arrogant to make such statements?

We have a sodium RDA for a reason…the body needs sodium because it is an essential mineral. What happens when sodium is too low? Here is a striking sentence which should make one sit up and take notice, it is from the above landmark study.


“sodium is known to play a critical role in normal human physiology, and activation of the renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system, which is harmful, occurs when sodium intake falls below 3.0 g per day”


What does this exactly mean? I will tell you straight up, it is not good. Here are some medical references and studies which talk about this below.



Effects of Low-Sodium Diet vs. High-Sodium Diet on Blood Pressure, Renin, Aldosterone, Catecholamines, Cholesterol, and Triglyceride (Cochrane Review)

Niels A. Graudal, Thorbjørn Hubeck-Graudal et al
[www.dieta-nutrizione.it]



Now…you don’t even have to read it all if you don’t want to because lam going to save you all the time. Just read the conclusion which states:


Sodium reduction resulted in a significant decrease in BP of 1% (normotensives), 3.5% (hypertensives), and a significant increase in plasma renin, plasma aldosterone, plasma adrenaline, and plasma noradrenaline, a 2.5% increase in cholesterol, and a 7% increase in triglyceride. Many of these increased levels are associated with health risks involving adrenal, liver, hormone and cardiovascular functions.


The study tells us that a `so called’ significant 1% decrease in blood pressure occurred with a reduction in sodium, BUT it may also lead to complications that may come with an increase in CVD risk, increased risk of adrenal problems, increased risk of kidney problems and increased risk of hormonal problems among other increased risks from increased levels that lead to these complications. Note: this paragraph needs to be read with great caution and could be incorrect because l cannot be sure if the low salt can directly lead to these complications or if they are tied in with various factors.


We now know from the landmark 2011 Mc Masters study that sodium restriction is not necessarily ideal in many cases, instead we should be looking at increasing potassium levels and be wary of sodium restriction recommendations to minimize possible risk factors associated with low sodium. We should also be viewing higher sodium intakes in relation to increased potassium intakes, but for raw vegans who eat lots of fruit it is more an issue of improving sodium levels perhaps higher than the current RDA. For sproutarians and other raw vegans barely reaching the RDA for potassium and sodium, it is recommended that they add mineralized salt to their meals and increase consumption of fruits.


Raw vegans may say that adding salt is not natural, but given the poor reputation of the raw vegan diet l would not be so arrogant to be making such statements until there are strong suggestions that low sodium levels are safe. Best to increase sodium levels and to buffer it well with good levels of potassium and a good diet to make sure no adverse health effects result from the increased salt intake. Remember…increased salt intake is not associated with increased blood pressure in healthy people when we eat good diets with high and balanced levels of nutrient. Increasing salt does not have to increase blood pressure or cause adrenal damage when potassium is at good levels (adrenal/salt/potassium study is not posted here).


Below are some links to plasma rennin and plasma aldosterone.

[www.webmd.com]

[medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com]

[www.nlm.nih.gov]

[labtestsonline.org]


Significant levels of plasma noradrenaline increase rate of death, but not much known about it. Levels increase with age.

[gero.usc.edu]


I may post another installment, but we will see.


A very important final message

It is amazing at how raw vegans try to do the diet well, yet there seems to be some problem or another that comes up and puts a dark cloud over everything. We see some raw vegans doing well, but very few standout as much healthier than healthy non vegans. I think we can probably do things much better. We don't know what we were capable of doing in the old days in terms of manaufacturing nutrients, so maybe relying on nature in this day and age does not work as well as we think it does. We need to keep open minded, the body and environment are compromised.

www.thesproutarian.com



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2014 11:41PM by The Sproutarian Man.

This totally makes sense to me. I love how some ardent 80-10-10ers keep repeating that we crave sweets because we were born to eat fruit but then what of salt cravings? It would seem to be just as normal to gravitate towards salty things, as well.

Sodium: seaweed has it. Raw vegans should eat seaweed anyway for the iodine content.

banana who Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This totally makes sense to me. I love how some
> ardent 80-10-10ers keep repeating that we crave
> sweets because we were born to eat fruit but then
> what of salt cravings?

I pay no attention to such fancy theories. So simplified and dumbed down when he have to resort to spitting out such talk (symtoms of being caught up in a raw food 101 world). We think we are conscious enough to know what we want, but we rarely are. To me much of this is caused by poor diet and condition of the body that is causing cravings. Why? Because we never have to crave sweets ever again when we eat lots of greens and various sprouts. The reason sweets stop a craving is because we indulge in that craving, same as when eating a bar of chocolate will stop a sweet craving. BUT....we don't need to endulge in sweet cravings to stop the cravings for sweet stuff, and to be able to do this we need an excellent diet of non sweets.

Banana who - people buy into the nonsense spat out above because they believe in fairy tale stories etched into their subconscious by raw food leaders talking rot, so their fantasy reality become their reality.

So what happens. We eat LOTS of fruit to stop sweet cravings, and then we eat more fruit 2 hours later to stop more sweet cravings? Why not just stop sweet cravings forever by eating properly?

We are said to need sweet, bitter and all the rest. Pthhh.




> It would seem to be just as
> normal to gravitate towards salty things, as well.


Ah yes. I like how some folks say they just eat some greens when they get a craving for salt.,.. like a few sticks of celery will solve the problem.

I didn't have hardly any salt for years and never craved salty stuff. Increasing salt intake has been a good thing imo, but can't be 100% sure because l added three new things when l started adding salt (silly).


What about all the people who try to eat naturally and eat what their feelings tell them and still get deficient. We need to be very wary of silly theories that tell us our instincts will lad us what to eat and fill our needs. Lots of possible holes with such ideas, and we cannot be simplifying such things so easily like many like to. I will not have a bar of any such talk.

If you start doing intinct eating you are bound for a downfall. Eating using well developed common sense is far better, but developing consciousness is very very important too. The problem is that both are rare and will many many to dark paths because oif the distractions blocking the wisdom/.

www.thesproutarian.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2014 02:12AM by The Sproutarian Man.

suncloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sodium: seaweed has it. Raw vegans should eat
> seaweed anyway for the iodine content.


Seaweed cannot be had in large amounts so it would not get close to the rda. 10 grams of seaweed gives about 1% RDA. I am certainly not going to eat 1 kg of seaweed each day to get the RDA, lwould like to but it would be a bad idea.

I wish these studiers don't state what they are using for sodium/ salt. It certainly makes a difference.

I'm at over high end of 6 grams of sodium/15 grams of salt - more like 8 grams of sodium. My blood pressure is 110/70 every time it's taken.

If you look at figure 1 in the landmark Mc Master study, it is showing people having less than 2 grams of sodium per day being at far greater risk of poor health events and death compared with people having over 12 grams of sodium per day.


Yes, telling us about the type of salt is important. Other studies are now talking about introducing a heavily potassium based salt onto the market place.


One thing we do need to do is stop eating refined foods, that includes silly refined table salt. We also need to stop buying into nonsense from raw food vegan leaders. We have been silly for long enough, now it is time to start getting our act together.

www.thesproutarian.com

Well, I eat raw salt at home. Real Salt right now, Himalayan, Celtic, the whole nine yards...I am uber hip.

the other side of the coin:

1,500 milligrams or less is the amount recommended by the AHA for ideal heart health.

[www.heart.org]

YOUR HEALTH
Excess levels of sodium/salt may put you at risk for:

High Blood Pressure
Stroke
Heart Failure
Osteoperosis
Stomach Cancer
Kidney Disease
Kidney Stones
Enlarged Heart Muscle
Headaches

YOUR APPEARANCE
Excess levels of sodium may cause:

INCREASED WATER RETENTION, LEADING TO

Puffiness
Bloating
Weight Gain

When I saw Charlotte Gerson speak in the early 1990s, she commented that she has NOT consumed any Salt since she was a child and is NOT Sodium Deficient and she was in her 70s when I saw her. Of course, there was a whole Chapter in Gerson's book on Salt and its role in Cancer, but they were talking about traditional table salt and we all know how bad that is!

Panchito Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the other side of the coin:
>
> 1,500 milligrams or less is the amount recommended
> by the AHA for ideal heart health.
>
> [www.heart.org]
> tionCenter/HealthyDietGoals/The-Effects-of-Excess-
> Sodium-on-Your-Health-and-Appearance_UCM_454387_Ar
> ticle.jsp
>
> YOUR HEALTH
> Excess levels of sodium/salt may put you at risk
> for:
>
> High Blood Pressure
> Stroke
> Heart Failure
> Osteoperosis
> Stomach Cancer
> Kidney Disease
> Kidney Stones
> Enlarged Heart Muscle
> Headaches
>
> YOUR APPEARANCE
> Excess levels of sodium may cause:
>
> INCREASED WATER RETENTION, LEADING TO
>
> Puffiness
> Bloating
> Weight Gain

HA, the dubious old Heart Association studies. That group never cease to amaze me with the stuff they spit out, that is why l place a red flag against that organisation to be very wary when reading anything they have to put out. They ignore the biggest salt study ever done and they ignore the biggest fat and cholesterol research ever done. Me thinks someone has gotten to them and l consequently would put little weight to anything they have to say.

50% of people are still dying of heart disease. Is the Heart Association really effective in doing anything, l have my doubts?



John Rose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I saw Charlotte Gerson speak in the early
> 1990s, she commented that she has NOT consumed any
> Salt since she was a child and is NOT Sodium
> Deficient and she was in her 70s when I saw her.
> Of course, there was a whole Chapter in Gerson's
> book on Salt and its role in Cancer, but they were
> talking about traditional table salt and we all
> know how bad that is!


*grits my teeth* Various things could be said about that, but l won't say anything for now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2014 08:00PM by The Sproutarian Man.

here is one study that says that low sodium helps endothelial cells. Some fats also damage endothelial cells (probably due to the high AGE content)

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Quote

CONCLUSIONS: Salt reduction improves endothelium-dependant vasodilation in normotensive subjects independently of the changes in measured resting clinic blood pressure. These findings suggest additional cardioprotective effects of salt reduction beyond blood pressure reduction. The trial is registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (unique identifier: ANZCTR12607000381482; [www.anzctr.org.au])

here is a reputable source about salt (National Academy of Sciences):

[www.nap.edu]

Quote

Concerns have been raised that a low level of sodium intake adversely affects blood lipids, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular disease risk. However, at the level of the AI, the preponderance of evidence does not support this contention. A potential indicator of an adverse effect of inadequate sodium is an increase in plasma renin activity. However, in contrast to the well-accepted benefits of blood pressure reduction, the clinical relevance of modest rises in plasma renin activity as a result of sodium reduction is uncertain.

In a high fat diet, you need more salt. Fat creates an acidic environment which makes you pee more often. This causes hyponatremia (from high amounts of water).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2014 01:24AM by Panchito.

<<<*grits my teeth* Various things could be said about that, but l won't say anything for now.>>>

???

Just out of curiosity - were you bullied as a child?

Is that why you were ANGRY EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE until you found Raw Food?

Is this why you have to knock someone else down in order to build yourself up?

I really don't understand why you can't comment on what Charlotte Gerson said or was it something I said and if so, why do you want to *grit your teeth*?

If you're still having ANGER issues, you might want to check out Bill Ferguson.

Here's a short recap from my file and if it doesn't apply to you, just ignore it and hopefully, someone else can benefit from Bill's Wisdom:

JR’s Summary of Bill Ferguson...

When you were born, you were pure love, but you were born into a world that suppresses this state. You then got hurt. You experienced rejection, invalidation and painful losses of love.

The presence or absence of this love seems to be a function of what happens around you, but it's not. It's a function of how you relate to what happens. In other words, the presence or absence of love is a function of you.

You have the ability to create a life that works for you instead of against you. You can have love in every relationship and in every aspect of your life. However, to do this, you need to grow in your awareness. You need to heal inside and you need to take some action.

Ultimately, the avoidance of this hurt is responsible for all your self-sabotaging behavior and all your suffering.

If you have an area of life where you suffer, you have a condition of unworkability. This condition may seem to be caused by your circumstances, but it's not.

Your circumstances are not the problem. They are just a symptom of something much deeper. The real problem is an underlying fear that forces you to interact in a way that creates your circumstances.

This fear produces a state of tunnel vision that destroys your ability to see clearly. All you can do is fight, resist, hang on or withdraw. This in turn destroys love and sabotages this area of your life.

Finding and healing this fear is the key to having life work. Until you do this, you will be forced to repeat the past and your condition of unworkability will continue.

When you are in a state of fear and upset, you destroy your ability to see what needs to be done. You close down and get tunnel vision. All you can do is to fight, resist, hang on, or withdraw. Almost any action you take in this state makes your situation worse.

You automatically fought the notion that you created and you fought all the hurt that came with it. From that moment on, the underlying focus of your life would be to avoid this hurt.

Unfortunately, you can't avoid it. As long as this suppressed hurt is in you, it's going to get triggered. The moment this happens, you feel threatened.

Instantly you become full of fear and upset. You close down and lose your ability to see clearly. You also get tunnel vision. You get tunnel vision because, subconsciously, the only thing that you are interested in is how to remove this threat.

It's this tunnel vision that sabotages your life.

When we get upset, it looks like the upset is caused by what happened, but this is an illusion. Upsets are not caused by what happens. Upsets are caused by fighting and resisting what happens.

The process for finding and healing this hurt is relatively simple and very non-confronting. This is because the hurt isn't based on what happened in your life. It's based on the thoughts you made up as a result of what happened. Once this illusion is exposed, the hurt loses power and you become free.

Once you find and heal this hurt, the areas of your life that don't work automatically begin to clear up. The tunnel vision disappears and so does the fear and upset. You restore your ability to see clearly. You become creative, resourceful and able to discover solutions you could never have seen before.

We fight what happens, because our circumstances trigger a suppressed hurt from the past. To say this another way, our circumstances strike a nerve.

This is why different people get upset at different things. Different people have different sets of nerves that get triggered. This is also why the same type of upsets and the same self-sabotaging behavior keep showing up in your life. The same suppressed hurt keeps getting triggered.

It's the automatic, subconscious avoidance of this hurt that sabotages our lives. Finding and healing this hurt is one of the most important things you can ever do.

Whenever some circumstance comes along and hints that you really are this way, you will automatically feel threatened. Instantly, you become full of fear and upset. You get tunnel vision. All you can do is fight, resist, hang on or withdraw. This in turn destroys love and sabotages your life.

You try to push the hurt away, but you can't. The hurt isn't outside of you. It's inside. So, in your attempt to push the hurt away, you actually push the hurt deeper inside.

You suppress your hurt. You then spend the rest of your life running from the very hurt that you suppressed. But you can't get away from it. You will continue to experience these feelings whether you like it or not.

As long as you have this hurt, it will get triggered. Your only choice is to feel it willingly like a child or to feel it unwillingly. When you feel your hurt willingly, the hurt loses power and disappears. When you fight the hurt, it turns into pain and stays.

So feel your hurt willingly like a child. Keep telling yourself, "It's okay to feel the hurt. It's okay." Let the hurt come and let it go. Cry as hard as you can. Crying is the most powerful tool for releasing hurt.

End of JR’s Summary of Bill Ferguson.

John Rose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I saw Charlotte Gerson speak in the early
> 1990s, she commented that she has NOT consumed any
> Salt since she was a child and is NOT Sodium
> Deficient and she was in her 70s when I saw her.
> Of course, there was a whole Chapter in Gerson's
> book on Salt and its role in Cancer, but they were
> talking about traditional table salt and we all
> know how bad that is!


Lets not think that all raw vegans who don't consume salt are going to be o.k. A friend who works in the health industry told me of various raw vegans and cooked vegans who were fond of avoiding salt being sodium deficient. They saw the tests and could confirm that vegans definitely get sodium deficient.


As for Charlotte, if she is juicing things like carrots and celery etc in good amounts it is possible she would be reaching the current RDA, but...is the RDA enough to sustain excellent health?...the largest study done says possibly not.

There are issues going on John. We have salty sweat and people need sodium, but vegans risk being low if they don't juice or eat certain salty foods in good quantity.

And lets think about this - when salt is used in highly protective diets, is it going to play a role in cancer or will the protective nutrients in a raw diet keep it away? What about the many other factors that contribute to cancer? We need to be very careful when making such statements that salt plays a role in cancer because there are many potential things which may contribute to cancer and many things that can protect against cancer, so concentrating on salt's role in cancer may not be so useful for raw vegans.

www.thesproutarian.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2014 07:45AM by The Sproutarian Man.

John....there will come a time in one of our lives when one becomes extremely greatful for every little bit of pain they have ever had. At the time we see it as a bad thing and despise it, but unbeknown to us at the time it is a very valuable experience that will provide an opportunity to learn and develop love and empathy at the time when wisdom starts to become developed. When wisdom is realised we start to put all the experiences of our life(s) together and use it to serve and love other people unconditionally.

I don't see past pain as a bad thing, l see it as a very good thing, and for all my pain l am greatful. Thinking of past pain makes me so happy that it brings tears to my eyes because l know how far l have come and realised it's purpose.

Life brings pain for very very good reason, so don't fight and reject the pain...just experience it, try not to judge it, put it in the side draw after the emotional experience and pull it back out when wisdom is realised. Believe me...when you pull that old pain out of the draw after wisdom has been realised, you will smile and shine brighter than ever before and you will cry for joy. It's all so beautiful,and there is no such thing as bad when you put everything into a context of time and evolvement of the soul, pain and suffereing is only an experience which serves the role of shaping the soul.

With love,
The Sproutarian

Even without scientific evidence certain things do not make sense intuitively.

Like high oil in the diet does not make sense to me for the simple reason that nature already provides food high in fat.

High sodium does not either, there are many vegetables that are good source of sodium like beet, celery and carrots.

RawPracticalist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Even without scientific evidence certain things do
> not make sense intuitively.


True.


>
> Like high oil in the diet does not make sense to
> me for the simple reason that nature already
> provides food high in fat.


True, but lwould rather use coconut fat to double DHA than risk being on the low side.

>
> High sodium does not either, there are many
> vegetables that are good source of sodium like
> beet, celery and carrots.

True, but l already juice around 32 oz of fresh sprout juice per day. I don't have time to be planting hundreds of carrots, celery and beets to be able to juice 6 pound or more of vegetables also. Even juicing 6 pounds of these foods each day is now considered on the low side, maybe juicing 9 pound is better?

And if you do manage to juice a bucket of FRESH home grown vegetables each day, how are you going to balance the manganese - iron - copper - zinc ratios on such a diet?

WE talk about eating natural (all raw foods) but it is not helping keep many people well. So much for that theory. Lots of raw vegans are agressive, others have physical issues (energy problems), mental issues and a host of things....it is commonly reported in blogs and forums and poor behaviour is commonly observed. We could do a lot better and l am trying to find solutions for those who are open minded and not stuck with old fancy theories that sound good.

I am a Hippocrates man, the food is your medicine runs in my blood, and l certainly don't like having to eat non food items, but l have been forced to change to views on things.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2014 08:50PM by The Sproutarian Man.

RawPracticalist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Even without scientific evidence certain things do
> not make sense intuitively.
>
> Like high oil in the diet does not make sense to
> me for the simple reason that nature already
> provides food high in fat.
>
> High sodium does not either, there are many
> vegetables that are good source of sodium like
> beet, celery and carrots.

You're so practical

an oil diet is very unnatural. Therefore, they need to introduce more unnatiral things to balance it out. It is OK to sprinkle some oil on saldas, but not to drink glasses. The high salt needs on a high fat diet tell a lot.