161 replies to this topic

[LiliVG]

I heard that in hospitals, doctors will give patients with high blood glucose an IV of sodium chloride to help lower their blood glucose levels to normal. So I looked it up online, and there was a study done that found a correlation between sugar levels and salt levels. Basically when salt consumption increased, average blood glucose was lower and vice versa. This was first noticed by a doctor in 1938 who noticed this association in acne sufferers. Maybe this answers the question of why some people eat junk food all day long and have perfect skin? Maybe their choice of junk food is higher in the saltier variety and lower in the sweeter stuff?

I'm posting this because my diet has always been very low in salt. Not on purpose really, but I just don't tend to salt my food much, and I'm just used to eating that way. So lately, since I'm pregnant, this has actually become a problem because, as my doctor explained, pregnancy can cause low blood pressure on it's own due to expanding blood vessels, and so if you have low blood pressure to start with, the blood pressure levels can get very low. I've always had low blood pressure, and I've nearly passed out a couple of times at very inopportune moments the past couple months! My doctor told me increasing salt intake can help increase your blood pressure because it makes you hold onto more of the water you drink, and that increases blood volume. So I've been making an effort to eat a lot more salt, and my skin hasn't looked better! Because I'm pregnant I'm not on any other supplement regimens right now, just to be on the safe side. However, because I'm pregnant, and that obviously effects hormones, I can't say for sure if it's the higher salt intake, or the pregnancy itself that's keeping my skin clear. My last pregnancy did not give me clear skin except for the first couple months, and I'm way past that point now. But if I look back at other times when my skin cleared up without a good explanation, I realize they were times when I was eating a lot of salty food. For example, I went on an all Mexican diet once just because I craved it so much, I thought what the hell. My skin cleared up. It was in retrospect very salty food. Second example was during Thanksgiving. I was eating turkey and gravy practically at every meal. At the time I thought it was because it was a higher protein diet that my skin cleared. But when I switched off the turkey and gravy and went to meat loaf, my acne came back. The gravy was very salty, and I was eating it at every meal! Third example was when we were moving from Oregon to California, we basically ate fast food for a week straight, and my skin cleared up. Fast food is notorious for being high in salt, and we were usually eating at Taco Bell which I think is particularly salty in my opinion. Salt is also an important part of the immune system, since your body uses the chloride in it for immune functions. Could low salt = lower immunity = increased infections?

So I need to ask a favor. Can anyone else try increasing their salt intake and see if it helps them? By this I mean basically making every meal a salty one. I'm going to start a poll to see if the people on this forum tend to have high salt or low salt diets generally. Thanks!

[AltaPGT]

I find this extremely interesting. Could you link the study you found?

A while back (maybe early this year) there was a thread started by a guy who claimed he cleared his skin by drinking lots of water and increasing his salt intake drastically. He recommended everyone get like 2400mg or something like that i don't remember.

Anyway I was going to try his idea as a last ditch effort for a long time, but then I finally wrote it off as too dumb to actually be worth trying...

Also, I have a low salt intake and a very high sugar intake. (when not on an acne diet)

I know here in America almost everyone gets too much salt, but I really don't think thats the case with me.

Also, must of us drink water all day... I know I for one piss clear 24/7. Could it be that the high water intake is lowering sodium levels even further?

[AltaPGT]

http://www.acne.org/messageboard/index.php...p;#entry2215554

Thats the thread I was referring to... although it looks like bosR has been around since, perhaps he will chime in.

[IPA]

The fast food probably clears you up quicker because of the good bowl movements it creates

[rakbs]

Salt is also an anti-histamine, which ties in with acne in some ways.

Maybe salt isn't so bad for us after all. It gets a bad rap because there's so much of it in fast food, but salt had been consumed long before the fast food industry sprang up. Soy sauce?

Edit: Then there's the fact that some people have managed to help their skin by washing it with an infusion of salt and water.

[AltaPGT]

I was just going to say what rakbs said.

And another point is that many of us consciously avoid salt because we fear the iodine might break you out, whether that is true or not (probably not)

[AltaPGT]

Also, my dad was in the ER earlier this year because he had a low grade infection and was severely dehydrated. When I went into his room he was hooked up to an IV that said NaCl something on the bag... and I thought why would they be giving him salt if he was dehydrated...

[AltaPGT]

This whole idea still seems crazy tho. And i could only find a couple references to the salt-blood sugar connection via google search, one of which was the article u referenced...

[rakbs]

This whole idea still seems crazy tho. And i could only find a couple references to the salt-blood sugar connection via google search, one of which was the article u referenced...

Ironically, I was just reading about this in "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes this morning.

It's real.

[EaZy]

I like braggs... basically really healthy soy sauce made without wheat and the sodium is in amino acid form so its easy to absorb

[AltaPGT]

rakbs- were u saying that Taubes advocated using sodium to help control blood sugar?

What else does he say about it?

[santiago]

celtic sea salt or himalayan crystal salt. these are the finest,purest,natural salts on the planet and if you research these salts you will find just how good salt can actually be for you, were as refined table salt is the complete opposite and should not be touched.

[sepsi]

Salt probably lowers blood sugar because it makes your so thirsty and drink water to flush the poison out. The more water in the bloodstream the lower the glucose concentration.

I doubt that there's more to it than that.

And before you start going willy-nilly with inorganic poison I suggest you read the other side of the salt story also. Here are two good links:

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/raw/messages/17442.html

http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/condiments...condiments.html

[-_-Andrew-_-]

the sodium is in amino acid form so its easy to absorb

what?

[LiliVG]

It really is hard to find online because of all the anti-salt hype that's everywhere on the internet. By the way, the salt I use is unrefined sea salt, I don't know if that makes a difference. I just figure it's more natural than pure salt which just doesn't occur in nature like that. Plus all the processing and additives...anyway, I use unrefined salt, and it doesn't have added iodine, though I think it has some iodine naturally occurring in it though I don't know how much. I've also been eating more foods that tend to be salty like pickles and chili from the heath food store, so no weird additives, but still pretty salty.

As for more salt = more water intake. I personally have not found that drinking more water on it's own helps my skin. I've tried drinking water all day long for months with no improvement, to the point where I was peeing clear. I mean, if you're peeing clear, how much more water can you drink?? I didn't find that helped me. Lately, I have been increasing my salt intake, and have not been drinking as much water as I have in the past, and my skin is clear. But again, with me being pregnant, I can't make any kind of conclusive results, other than the salty skin clearing diets I that seemed to have worked for me other times in retrospect.

[sepsi]

I was not commenting on whether salt can get you clear or not. It's possible it causes some sort of reaction that may help you with acne.

I was commenting on the fact that salt is really not healthy. Not even so-called healthy salts. Minerals in salt are inorganic and your body cannot use them. We can use minerals in organic form, such as we get them from plant foods.

Too much salt will kill you. It's a poison, and it's still a poison in small quantities.

[Adri Chan]

I only use unrefined sea salt (and I don't eat seafood) , do you guys think it could lead to iodine deficiency?

[LiliVG]

I was not commenting on whether salt can get you clear or not. It's possible it causes some sort of reaction that may help you with acne.

I was commenting on the fact that salt is really not healthy. Not even so-called healthy salts. Minerals in salt are inorganic and your body cannot use them. We can use minerals in organic form, such as we get them from plant foods.

Too much salt will kill you. It's a poison, and it's still a poison in small quantities.

I think it takes 13 tablespoons of salt to kill a person. I haven't suggested anything above the RDA of 2500mgs per day, which is about 1 tsp. That's the government recommendation. The idea that salt is just purely bad is inaccurate. You need salt to live. In fact, a recent study found that people on a low salt diet were 4 times more likely to die of a stroke than those on a normal or high salt diet. Salt is really important for health. Like any essential electrolyte in our system, too much or too little is harmful and dangerous, and potentially fatal.

[LiliVG]

I was just thinking, and this salt thing seems to answer a lot of the "mysteries" I've noticed over time about who gets acne and when and why. For instance:

Breakouts when you start bodybulding
When you sweat, you lose salt and electrolytes through your skin. If you don't replace the salt you're losing, you could become very low on salt. It's well known that athletes perform better when they make sure to make a conscious effort to get enough salt to replace that lost through sweat.

Why overweight people seem more likely to have clear skin than underweight people
Usually, not always but usually, people who are overweight eat a lot more salt than people who are underweight.

People who start surfing or swimming at the beach a lot seem to clear up immediately
Have you ever gone swimming in the ocean, and managed to NOT swallow some sea water? It's nearly impossible! If you did that on a regular basis, you'd be taking in a good amount of salt. Ocean water is extremely salty.

Why the low carb/high meat diet seems to work for a lot of people
A diet based on meat would generally be salter than a diet higher in carbs.

Why multivitamin supplements make some people break out
Multivitamin supplements contain several minerals that compete with sodium directly, like Magnesium. Magnesium competes with sodium. Yet there is always little to no salt in supplements. If you started taking a multivitamin, and changed nothing else about your diet, your blood sodium levels will go down.

"Why does my friend eat junk food every day and have perfect skin?"
Maybe the junk food your friend is eating is more trending toward the salty kind. Many junk/snack foods are notoriously high in salt. It could be a matter of *which* snack/junk foods they're eating predominantly.

How does Taurine help clear acne for so many people?
Taurine is a sodium regulator. If your sodium levels are too low, it will bring them up and vice versa. While Taurine does a lot of things in the body (anti-inflammatory, wound healing, etc), this could be one key point to Taurine's effectiveness for acne.

"I became a vegan/vegetarian, and my skin got worse!"
Many people get most of their salt from processed foods. When someone becomes a vegan/vegetarian, their diet will suddenly be either very low in processed foods, or completely devoid of processed foods. That in itself isn't bad, but the dietary salt will drop dramatically without a conscious effort to maintain salt intake. In addition to low salt, a vegan/vegetarian diet is very high in carbs and potassium. Potassium competes with the now already low sodium. The low salt then reduces insulin sensitivity for the increased carb intake in a sort of compounding effect. It's a bit of a double wammy. Vegan/vegetarian = High carbs + insulin resistance.


This is all speculation, obviously, but it answers so many of the oddities I've noticed since being a member of this forum, that it really makes me really wonder.

[Jen121]

I noticed when I started adding sea salt to my foods, my skin looked better. It wasn't a big enough difference to start a thread, but I thought it was helping