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Comment by gnulinux | Hacker News Reader

I love sodium and virtually never heard of this "sodium is the devil" narrative before! (I know right, was I living in a cave?) Anyway a few weeks back me and my friend was ordering Chinese food. And he was like, meh Chinese food has too much sodium let's order something else. Turns out sodium is bad because it accumulates water in your body? After that I started being super particular about my sodium intake.

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I don't think sodium accumulates in the body - Na+ and Cl- are both ions which are relevant to a wide variety of cellular processes, and as far as I know your body has a lot of tools for maintaining the balance of electrolytes in the body.

As far as I understand, the health risk associated with excess sodium intake is high blood pressure, i.e. more stress on your cardiovascular system.

Kidneys too, last time I looked. Apparently it's kind of a feedback loop where salt makes them work poorly which leads to high pressure which leads to damage and repeat. Some details here:

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/kidneys-salt-and-blood-pr...

As I understand it's related in that salt dissolves in water easily and somehow causes your body to retain water. This in turn increases the water in your blood (plasma I guess), thus the pressure increases. A 'water pill' (hydrochlorothiazide) is often prescribed along with blood pressure reducing medicine to make you urinate and remove water from your system. While my salt intake is normal, it wasn't until I was prescribed a water pill in conjunction with my blood pressure pill that I was able to see better results and also able to take less of the blood pressure med.

I mean that is just basic chemistry. Basically your body wants to have a certain concentration of ions in your bodily fluid, so if you put more sodium in, your body needs to hold on to more water to dilute it until you're able to pee it out

Sodium levels are so vitally important to our health that we we have a couple (more or less) of specialized organs for keeping it at the right balance, called 'kidneys'. Oh, OK, they also balance magnesium and potassium and maybe some other iums, but the little glomerules function by pumping sodium ions around to adjust concentrations of solute on either side of a semi-permeable membrane. Or something.

Don't worry about sodium unless you've been diagnosed with a metabolic problem.

Don't agree with that. For example here it shows that sodium might increase your chances to survive heart desease: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/good-heart-keep-holding-... Kidneys require sodium to function properly. Adrenals via aldosterone impact sodium. And when you're stressed, your adrenals might be in a bad shape. I think sodium is a big deal. And some people hit with that especially hard.

I think GP meant don't worry about an excess of sodium.

I do feel kind of bloaty when I eat wretched excesses of sodium all at once, usually ramen, but it passes.

Generally eat a high salt diet, add other minerals (mostly potassium) to drinking water, and take magnesium glycinate before bed. Minerals are easy to eliminate and if I'm not getting enough there's no alternative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_salted_fish#Health_c... was an eye-opener to me

This[1] rather lengthy article suggests that the issue there isn't the salt, but rather the interaction between the salt and the raw fish which causes carcinogenic compounds to form.

1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK304384/

I have pre-hypertension which is a BP between 120/80 and 140/90 and the quickest 'fix' is to follow a lower sodium diet. I think it's pretty common for people around 'parent' age to have this, especially if they eat the SAD, so it'll be something you hear as a kid. I know I did!

Maybe your friend was referencing MSG? Makes me extremely thirsty hours later, and then I HAVE to "accumulate water in my body", on purpose, to satiate the unquenchable thirst caused by MSG

I don't want to kick the hornet's nest, but isn't MSG avoidance just an example of nocebo? It's just a salt right and its connection to headaches has never actually been established, it's jut something people say.

> isn't MSG avoidance just an example of nocebo?

In fact, the fears around MSG seem to have some overlap with negative racial stereotypes:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51139005

I have heard of some people experiencing sensitivities to MSG, but as the exception and not the norm.

I imagine they are feeling a similar thing to the people that can “feel” 5G cell towers

never got a headache ever, just super thirsty afterwards

MSG is often used as a food additive in combination with heroic amounts of fat and sugar which would otherwise be unpalatable without it - particularly in a Chinese restaurant setting which is what people associate with MSG...

You're probably experiencing a sugar crash.

I suspect you don't experience the same after eating a bag of Doritos but they're absolutely loaded with MSG.. plus in all likelihood also sodium inosinate, sodium guanylate and who knows what else.

Many foods contain rather large amounts of glutamate naturally. Do you get especially thirsty after eating meat or dairy?

Chinese restaurants in the US are notorious for using excess salt and sweeteners.

Though to be fair it's a form of arms race, most US restaurants overdo it if the regional palette has become desensitized. It's not strictly a Chinese restaurant issue.

But many Chinese dishes on the menus are defined by their sweet and salty axis, and being in this environment they're pushed to the extreme.

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