As we consume unrefined salt on our food, our body is able to pass any excess. But if we consume salt mixed with water, our body is forced to absorb more. This can come in handy for the right situations, but also carries the potential to cause offsets.
Article Hightlights
- Unrefined Salt is important
- Salt loading may grab bromine knocked loose by iodine
- Long-term use may not be great
- Long-term use may backfire on its intended purpose
- Which symptoms might salt loading help?
- The Salt Loading recipe
A lot of info about salt is incorrect in one way or another. Read more about salt itself at whyiodine.com/salt
What is salt loading for?
As we increase the amount of iodine we’re exposed to, one of the substances we can very likely start knocking loose is bromine. Bromine is something we are extremely commonly exposed to in today’s environments and diets.
Salt loading can potentially help us bind and remove bromine that has been knocked loose by iodine.
There is a good chance a lot of our current thyroid hormones have been created with bromine instead of iodine. Keep in mind that we’re made of trillions of cells and every single one depends on thyroid hormones ..which are potentially made of bromine at this point. This could explain why some of us seem to push bromine out forever and have lingering bromine symptoms no matter what we do. Trillions of cells.
As we push these bromine-based hormones out of our cells, we can potentially use salt loading to bind with bromine and remove it from our body the next time we urinate.
I try to move slow with iodine in order to give my body time to keep up with the toxicity I might be knocking loose. I also get a lot of salt on my food. There have been times salt loading helps me clear bromine symptoms. But, I am likely keeping most of my bromine symptoms away by consuming enough salt with food and going slow with iodine.
I personally do not think salt loading is good long-term
There are several people in the iodine community advocating for daily salt loading. Some doctors have their patients doing several per day. Although this process is relatively safe, we’re all very different. So it might not be the best idea to dive into this method full force and assume there are no drawbacks. This is why I save salt loading for bromine detox symptoms, and get as much salt as I can on my food.
Sustained overconsumption of sodium, particularly as salt, has been related to development of hypertension in sensitive individuals. 1 When we add salt to our food, most of it will be absorbed in our gut, which can limit how much it want’s to absorb and pass the rest. But when we drink salt water, most of it will be absorbed into our blood stream just about instantly where it is essentially forced though our organs.
There is some information about electrolytes damaging liver and kidney cells in order to increase hydration. 2 What’s happening here is actually beneficial to some degree because it’s increasing our ability to hydrate. But this is not something we want to do all the time.
Have you ever noticed how a balloon can be filled up much larger if it is filled slowly? But if it is filled very quickly, it can pop while its still rather small. The stretching of the balloon is similar to our cells being stretched apart by salt water. Increasing the size of the area that we can hydrate might be a good thing, but we don’t want to do it too quickly. And it’s possible that consuming enough unrefined salt on our food might allow this to happen at a more natural rate. So maybe salt loading is best saved for bromine symptoms? Idk
Long-term use might backfire in more ways than one
So, I talk to a lot of people. The last time I downloaded my Facebook chat log, I had connected with 2,000 people through messenger. During these discussions, I have learned a lot of details about how various things work or do not work for others. This is actually part of how I originally how I learned so much about health.
I have had a handful of people reach out to me from either the emergency room or with paramedics at their home due to a major electrolyte imbalance that caused them to have a reaction. Every time this happened except one time, it was most likely due to people drinking salt water at least once per day for a week or more.
Another issue I am noticing is that people who drink salt water all the time because they read it’s good, are having bromine detox reactions. Except salt water is supposed to help us detox bromine, so how are they experiencing bromine detox? I’m not sure how, but it seems like constant salt loading reduces our ability to bind bromine and remove it, which is the exact reason we’re using salt loading in the first place.
Imo, salt loading should be reserved for bromine detox symptoms.
Common bromide toxicity symptoms
- Body: diarrhea or constipation, hormone changes, leg and hip ache, frequent urination (mimicking urinary infection)
- Mood: Anxiety, dream changes, irritability, lethargy
- Head: brain fog, headache, sinus ache, runny nose, hair loss
- Mouth: dry mouth, increased salivation, mouth and tongue sores, odd swallowing sensation
- Skin: Acne, skin rash (bromaderma)
- Twitching & Jerking: eye lid twitching, foot twitching, tingling in hands or feet, leg jerking
More about bromine at whyiodine/bromine
How to prepare a Salt Load
- 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon unrefined salt(pink, celtic, not table salt) whyiodine.com/salt Read it!
- 1/2 cup water to mix salt into
- 12-16oz pure water to drink instantly after salt water
I use a mason jar because it has measurements on the side. I fill it up to 4oz which is 1/2 cup and add my salt. I swirl the jar around until the salt is dissolved. Then I drink the salt and fill the jar up to 12-16oz of plain water and drink that right away. Sometimes I notice my brain fog clear within seconds, sometimes I feel it slowly help.
If I don’t notice relief and do not urinate in 30-45 minutes, my body may have needed the sodium, and used it for other processes instead of binding with bromine. If this happens, I do another salt load. But instead of depending on salt loading, I increase the amount of salt I intake on my food while possibly also reducing or pausing my iodine intake.
Although salt has been an important nutrient in my journey back to health, as soon as it helps get my cells running, I have a ton of extra toxins and byproducts to clean up. If I don’t clean these up, my system stays clogged and my cells end up loaded with junk again. I want to get a good bit of unrefined salt, but I technically should only be getting it while applying it to my nutritious food with potassium, magnesium and calcium, which are some of the other electrolytes that work together as I build my cells back up. Read more about about electrolytes at whyiodine.com/electrolytes
Here is a video I created a few years ago to help explain how salt loading works
- Recommended Dietary Allowances: 10th Edition. Chapter 11 water and electrolytes – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234935/
- ISOTONICITY OF LIVER AND OF KIDNEY TISSUE IN SOLUTIONS OF ELECTROLYTES – J Exp Med. 1959 Jul 1; 110(1): 103–111. doi: 10.1084/jem.110.1.103 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2136967/