Speaker 2
Right. Okay. So salt is very important for for so many reasons. One interesting thing in your book that you you discussed was salt cravings and sugar cravings and how they are very different in nature, even though many people would maybe naturally assume that, okay, it it means some sort of a dopaminergic addiction or whatnot, but salt cravings are actually an physiological signal for from your body to say that maybe I need more salt. So can you explain what are salt cravings? What is salt set point and how does salt cravings relate to your salt intake needs?
Speaker 1
Yeah. So there's good questions. The salt set point is sort of like this physiological predetermined set point where if you basically feel your best at a certain level of salt intake, just kind of like you feel your best at a certain amount of like a glycogen repletion, your body feels best at a certain amount of salt intake and animals from a physiological standpoint have to have some type of mechanism to tell them when they're deficient in salt because it's an essential nutrient that if you don't get enough of it, you will die. So the only really smart enough organ that could tell an animal to go out and seek out something would be the brain and the reward center of the brain. And it turns out that when you don't get enough salt, the dopamine center in the brain is hyperactivated. That way, if an animal found salt in the in the diet, it would get a better reward from it. It would light up the brain better and thus the animal would consume more of it and wouldn't die from salt depletion. Unfortunately, when you have this hyperactive dopamine system in the brain, other things that activate the dopamine system like sugar, like things like cocaine and other addictive drugs, but also even controlled substances like Adderall and things like that for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are more stimulating and more addicting. So low salt diets can potentially predispose to sugar addiction, but also to drug addiction as well, because it enhances the reward center in the brain.
Speaker 2
Wow. Okay. So you also discussed about the fact that by just increasing the salt intake, you can reduce the sugar cravings. So is this where it relates to?
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the craving is coming from the hyperactivated system, dopamine system in the brain. And so you can calm that down by just consuming a normal amount of salt. And a lot of people too who are craving sugar will just put some salt on their tongue. And that will quickly down regulate the reward center in the brain and will reduce sugar cravings. Like one of the one thing that works well for me is either pickle juice, if I have a sugar craving, salt on the tongue works really well too, or something like relight, which is just basically an electrolyte powder that tastes really good. That will decrease sugar cravings as well. I
Speaker 2
think that's amazing. I think this is very little disgust sort of hack to sugar cravings, because I get a lot of questions on how to reduce sugar cravings. And before actually reading a book, I never even thought that takes salt. And that reduces the sugar cravings. But now I know better, which is cool. Okay. So what other modern day symptoms can relate to too low sodium intake?
Speaker 1
Yeah. So modern day symptoms, the first one would be from a dehydration, which is essentially blood volume depletion. So you will just have less energy, because you're having less blood flow to the brain, your cognition will go down. People will say brain fog, but it's really just reduced blood flow to the brain, decreasing cognition, short term recall, your mood will be affected so poor mood as well. Those are kind of like the more cognitive things. But again, we talked about sleep disturbances as well. If you don't get enough salt, your exercise performance and fatigue will suffer. If you don't get enough salt, headaches, especially most people with headaches and migraines, they are probably magnesium deficient. But a lot of it also is salt efficient and not having a good enough blood volume and they're dehydrated, which is contributing to their headaches as well. So those are some of the symptoms, but you can also have muscle cramps, muscle spasms. Those are very common, especially if you are exercising particularly in the heat. Salt is usually the number one factor that will improve muscle cramps and muscle spasms in that particular setting. Magnesium is obviously important as well. And we talked about how not getting enough salt can lead to magnesium deficiency as it gets pulled from the bone. And then that, of course, can lead to a plethora of similar symptoms that coincide with assault efficiency.
