Salt can lower blood pressure?

Salt can lower blood pressure???

Do you know anyone who is on a low salt diet who still has high blood pressure?

I do. Lots of them. In fact, I've seen several patients lower their blood pressure by increasing their salt intake. Huh?

It is true that too much salt causes high blood pressure, but did you know that too little salt can cause high blood pressure too? Well, it can. Just like any other nutrient, too much can be harmful, but too little can be even more harmful.

Dr. Campise's Salt-for-Health Protocol

1. Check your blood pressure seated after resting for 15 minutes. Measure the circumferences of your ankles. Record these measurements.
   
   
2. Put 1 tsp of raw salt in a ziplock baggie. Add salt like you would normally do to your food during the day, but from the baggie. Then at the end of the day, measure the salt that is left in the baggie and subtract this from 1 tsp to get the amount of salt you are adding to your food on a daily basis.
   
   
3. The next day put the amount of salt you used the prior day plus ¼ tsp into a baggie. Try to use all of this on your food throughout the day, if there is salt left over at the end of the day, put it in water and drink the rest.
   
   
4. On the following day, remeasure your blood pressure and ankle circumferences in the exact same way as the day before. If your blood pressure goes up and/or if your ankles got larger, this means you got too much salt, so back off until numbers come down to optimal. HOWEVER, if your blood pressure went down, and/or your ankles got smaller, this means you were low in salt and you needed the extra salt that you added.
   
   
5. If you needed the salt, then keep increasing it by ¼ tsp per day until the blood pressure or ankles increase in amount/size again, then back off the salt slightly from there. In this trial and error way you can find the optimal salt level for you.
   
   
6. Over the next few weeks continue to monitor your ankles and blood pressure because once your body gets saturated with salt, you may need to decrease it again. Or if you start a workout routine or the weather gets hot and you are sweating more, you may need to increase it more.

That's it!

More Info:

Of course too little salt can also cause low blood pressure.

Generally the way it works is:

5) Way too much salt causes high blood pressure

4) A little too much salt causes slightly high blood pressure

3) The right amount of salt allows for normal blood pressure

2) Slightly to moderately low salt causes low blood pressure

1) Severely low salt can cause high blood pressure.

0) Extremely low salt can cause death.

So as you can see, if you go from severely low salt intake to slightly low salt intake, you can lower your blood pressure dramatically.

But paradoxically, this is achieved by increasing your salt intake.

Beware:

If you were borderline high blood pressure because of slightly too much salt intake, your doctor might say to cut out salt from your diet.

So let's say you do cut it out. But if you end up cutting out so much that now you are severely low in salt, you will go from borderline-high blood pressure to high blood pressure.

All because you cut out too much salt.

So now your MD puts you on a high blood pressure medication, which brings your blood pressure down to normal.

Then you read my article on salt and decide to experiment by adding some salt back into your diet. If you add just enough salt to get into the slightly low salt range..., can you see the problem?

That's right, your blood pressure can plummet to dangerously low levels because of the additive effect of the slightly low salt and the blood pressure medication.

In other words, by increasing your salt, you may no longer need blood pressure medication, but because you are still taking it, you may get light headed and risk passing out or losing your balance when you stand up.

You can see how this is especially problematic in the elderly. Overdosed blood pressure medicine is the cause of way too much injury to the elderly due to low-blood-pressure-induced falling.

So when experimenting with salt, please monitor your blood pressure closely and at the first sign of it going down, stop increasing the salt and ask your MD to lower the dose of your blood pressure medication or to take you off it.

Yes, some people are needlessly on high blood pressure medication when all they needed was a little more salt in their diet!

The best salt to use:

Raw salt is best because it still has lots of trace minerals in it.

Most table salts have been bleached and processed to take out the good trace minerals in order to achieve a white attractive uniform looking salt product.

My favorite brand of raw salt is Real Salt. It comes from an ancient sea bed mine in Utah.

Other good salts include Celtic Sea Salt, and Himalayan pink salt. But beware: plain old “sea salt” is not raw salt.

Other common causes of high blood pressure:

1) Smoking

2) Obesity

3) Chronic stress

4) Lack of exercise

So try out some raw salt and let me know!

Looking forward!

Yours in health,

Dr. Campise :)

www.drjohnusa.com

559 930 1034