What I do or do not know about salt!

[smittims]

Thanks for that link. Although (touch wood) I've always had a healthy ticker I'm a fan of the British Heart Foundation. Their furniture shops are excellent. We recently furnished a hoiuse entirely from one visit to their store, with pieces of new or virtually-new condition. And some of their shops have interesting vinyl bargains.

[Dave2002]

My guess is that you were probably hyponatremic, which means the sodium level in your blood. It happens frequently when people lose a lot of NaCL from both sweating and insensible losses (mainly increased breathing, which mammals commonly due on hot and humid days, as any dog owner knows). We then tend to drink fluids and that can acutely lower the sodium level further via dilution.
Hyponatremia sometimes is relatively asymptomatic, particularly if the rate of its development is gradual, as frequently happens when people take diuretics or some other blood pressure medication. However if it develops rapidly, such as on a hot day as described, even a small amount of hyponatremia can produce the symptoms that you describe

Indeed - and the advice I had from the local doctor to put a modest amount of salt into a glass and drink it clearlly worked.

I think it is possible to not notice the low levels of sodium - or even if one does - that may not help if there is no immediate remediation possible. I think I got to recognise some of the symptoms after that, not maybe very reliably, but enough to consider doing a salt taste test on suspicion of that condition. Often I could drink a lot of salty water without noticing, but just a few times trying to do so was horrible, and I stopped immediately.

Regarding other issues, yes - we are all different, and there are people whose metabolism just doesn't fit in with the norms.

Also - regarding the comments about animal food - I know of one animal which doesn't fit into the established patterns of knowledge. Dogs are supposed to avoid chocolate - being apparently fatal to them. The dog in question found a wrapped up Terry's chocolate orange under a Christmas tree a year or more back, and ate it and the silver foil wrapping. She's still very lively - though maybe it did affect her, but we don't notice much difference at the time - only the evidence of the remains of the packaging. Recently she also attacked and ate about a quarter of a plastic tub of dog vitamin supplements. That did have an effect, as for about half a day she was even more lively than usual. I don't think this dog believes any of the warnings put out by vets or others.

[Dave2002]

There does seem to be pretty good evidence that too much salt is bad for you. The problem is that a high proportion of the processed foods contain a lot of salt - and people consume a lot of processed and ultraprocessed foods, not all 'junk food', but fast food, ready prepared foods, convenience foods, shop-bought snacks can all add sodium to the diet without people realising it. The antidote is potassium: avocados, bananas, broccoli, lentils ...

Care has to be taken not to go overboard on this. Sometimes people try to "be healthy" and eat too many bananas, which can also cause difficulties if done to excess.

[richardfinegold]

Indeed - and the advice I had from the local doctor to put a modest amount of salt into a glass and drink it clearlly worked.

I think it is possible to not notice the low levels of sodium - or even if one does - that may not help if there is no immediate remediation possible. I think I got to recognise some of the symptoms after that, not maybe very reliably, but enough to consider doing a salt taste test on suspicion of that condition. Often I could drink a lot of salty water without noticing, but just a few times trying to do so was horrible, and I stopped immediately.

Regarding other issues, yes - we are all different, and there are people whose metabolism just doesn't fit in with the norms.

Also - regarding the comments about animal food - I know of one animal which doesn't fit into the established patterns of knowledge. Dogs are supposed to avoid chocolate - being apparently fatal to them. The dog in question found a wrapped up Terry's chocolate orange under a Christmas tree a year or more back, and ate it and the silver foil wrapping. She's still very lively - though maybe it did affect her, but we don't notice much difference at the time - only the evidence of the remains of the packaging. Recently she also attacked and ate about a quarter of a plastic tub of dog vitamin supplements. That did have an effect, as for about half a day she was even more lively than usual. I don't think this dog believes any of the warnings put out by vets or others.

Vint is right in that one loses minerals other than NaCl, but from a pragmatic perspective replacing a small amount of NaCl as Dave’s physician told him to do will relieve the symptoms.
There is of course a multibillion dollar industry devoted to rehydration drinks, each trying to outdo each other in advertising hype as to what you should require in these drinks. There may be some relevance to extreme sports such as Marathon running, but for most of us a salt shaker will handle it.
As I said earlier, it’s the rate of decline of a sodium level, more than the absolute decline, that tends to produce symptoms. And it can be remarkable how fast the symptoms resolve in severe hyponatremia with just a small amount of replacement. The patient will be clinically improved long before the lab numbers significantly normalize. There is a danger to normalizing severe hyponatremia to quickly-cerebral edema, otherwise known as brain swelling-so the mantra is to go slow

[french frank]

Care has to be taken not to go overboard on this. Sometimes people try to "be healthy" and eat too many bananas, which can also cause difficulties if done to excess.

But the central tenet of Zoe is that one should strive for a balanced diet. Blimey, I'm beginning to sound like a foot-in-door salesperson. Btw, the diet has no subscription. You pay for the food you choose to buy:

https://zoe.com/learn/category/nutrition/diets

[Serial_Apologist]

Which all goes to explain Franz's advice to Serial: "Stir just a mustard spoonful of salt into a glass of cold water - say a half pint tumbler - and drink."

What surprised - and still surprises me - was the tiny amount of salt that was needed to remedy the extreme thirst. Having read the subsequent posts it probably didn't rectify the previous deficiency, so while it did seem to be enough to support me for the remainder of the shift I am left thinking that the sensory response of salt in any quantity on tongue triggered a reward response, rather in the way that just retrieving food from an oven stimulates anticipatory pleasure in the pit of a hungry stomach!

[Serial_Apologist]

Care has to be taken not to go overboard on this. Sometimes people try to "be healthy" and eat too many bananas, which can also cause difficulties if done to excess.

During World War II one needed to be wary about the safety of certain foods in scare supply amid relative neglect of hygiene standards. My parents managed to obtain a pork pie; this was something of a rarity, and so on finding mould around the edges of the meat they decided nevertheless to take a risk and eat it. There were no aftereffects; nevertheless they thought to telephone their doctor rather than risk food poisoning. He told them they would probably be all right, but just to reassure themselves he advised drinking a glass of warm water containing a large spoonful of salt. They did so, and were very sick. But they survived, and - who knows? - I might never have come into the world, had it not been for their prompt action!

[Bella Kemp]

During World War II one needed to be wary about the safety of certain foods in scare supply amid relative neglect of hygiene standards. My parents managed to obtain a pork pie; this was something of a rarity, and so on finding mould around the edges of the meat they decided nevertheless to take a risk and eat it. There were no aftereffects; nevertheless they thought to telephone their doctor rather than risk food poisoning. He told them they would probably be all right, but just to reassure themselves he advised drinking a glass of warm water containing a large spoonful of salt. They did so, and were very sick. But they survived, and - who knows? - I might never have come into the world, had it not been for their prompt action!

That's a lovely story. It's a vey fine thing that you are in this world.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's a lovely story. It's a very fine thing that you are in this world.

Awwww - shucks!

[Anastasius]

But the central tenet of Zoe is that one should strive for a balanced diet. Blimey, I'm beginning to sound like a foot-in-door salesperson. Btw, the diet has no subscription. You pay for the food you choose to buy:

https://zoe.com/learn/category/nutrition/diets

Having parted with a load of money for their Gut Health kit, the results were very devoid of any sensible information, often conflicting and I eventually got a refund. So I am now rather sceptical of Zoe.

[Anastasius]

On the subject of the effects of heat on the body, I'd like to share my own experiences with dehydration. Not induced by heat but as a by-product of catching giardiasis and thus very frequent visits to the loo.

I'd read up all about dehydration in these circumstances and kept an eye on the usual checks...colour of urine (meaningless...looked fine), how long it would take for a pinch of skin on the back of the hand to settle back down (a pointless test unless you know what your 'normal' time is). If it wasn't a second serendipitous meeting with a doctor chum - he who correctly diagnosed at the first meeting that I had giardiasis. He'd had a spell as a doctor in the TA ("I've seen more cases of giardiasis then most GP's will see in a lifetime"). My (useless) GP refused to accept that I had it and so my mate gave me a private prescription. I digress. At the second meeting, he told me in no uncertain terms that the next day I had to go either to A&E or my GP.

Opted (unsurprisingly) to go to A&E. Yes, I was pretty dehydrated...I really just wanted to crawl under a stone and die, I felt that bad. But an IV saline drip was, after about a minute, like a small explosion of energy going off inside me.

Moral of the story? Apart from having a good GP, if you are visiting the loo very regularly, then drink lots of water. Then drink some more. And don't believe the colour of your urine. Your kidneys will be grateful.