Salt can be a useful tool in your health arsenal, when used properly.

It can boost your electrolytes, help with fluid balance, nerve transmission, and muscle function. Although salt is not in itself harmful, Americans are guilty of eating way too much, more than the human body was ever designed to process.
Salt and Autoimmunity
Fast foods, junk foods, and snack foods are all heavily salted to increase palatability, shelf life, and mask their inherent poor quality. While everyone should be avoiding excess salt found in today’s food, those who should be especially wary are people suffering from high blood pressure, heart disease, and those with autoimmune diseases.
Autoimmunity is when your body’s immune system starts attacking its own cells, and our extreme consumption of salt raises the risk of the body’s immune system destroying viable tissue. Examples of common autoimmune conditions are:
- Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism
- Multiple sclerosis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Psoriasis
- Lupus
- Type 1 Diabetes
Should You Stop Eating Salt?
The gradual tissue destruction that comes along with autoimmunity, along with the inflammation generated from the autoimmune attacks, causes a wide array of chronic and seemingly unsolvable symptoms. Does this mean you should stop eating salt? Not necessarily. The focus is on paying attention to the foods you put into your body, avoiding overly processed and junk foods, and reducing extra salt intake. The USDA daily recommended intake of sodium is 2300 mg, which is the equivalent of only one teaspoon of salt. Ultimately lowering salt intake can produce beneficial, anti-inflammatory changes in the immune system.
For more information on managing autoimmune conditions and maintaining a low-salt diet, get in touch with our office.
Latest from the Blog
Gluten Intolerance Testing
February 4, 2022What You Need to Know About Gluten Intolerance Testing The term “gluten intolerance” is most likely a phrase you have heard from time to time when talking to friends and family, doctors, or hearing it on the television. It is becoming an increasingly more common phenomenon and may be the cause for many pesky symptoms […] Read more
Latest from the Blog
Make the New Year more active through more fun
Most of us are starting the New Year with resolutions to improve, but few changes will improve your life more than regular exercise. However, starting an exercise habit can seem insurmountable to the chronically sedentary. This article offers tips to get you motivated to begin and stick with regular exercise. First off, there’s more to […] Read more