The Low Sodium Controversy

There has been a recent surge in the media/press about sodium intake in our American nutrition/diet. First what I am going to do is explain exactly what sodium is versus salt. Second I will give you what the medical and governmental guidelines are for what the human body requires and what we actually get from American foods. Then there are some confusing definitions by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on what is Low Sodium versus Very Low Sodium versus Reduced Sodium.

Sodium is an essential mineral and electrolyte (essential chemical) in human cellular function. It is used in every body organ and system and you could not function and yes you could possibly get very sick or die if your sodium levels rapidly change. But the body is very good at maintaining its sodium balance. There are human populations in Brazil that live on an extremely small amount of sodium. As well as in Japan some of the island populations consume over 10 grams of sodium and do just fine. If the body is healthy it will compensate and adjust. What I am trying to say here is that sodium is very important to human life. When consumed in moderation (Americans never do anything in moderation) sodium is an essential part of a healthy diet.

There has been a lot of controversy over sodium intakes in America since as far back as the 1960’s and 1970’s. Sodium and salt have been vilified as the scourge of society. There have been medical studies that say it’s a bad, bad, bad thing and you need to avoid it like the plague. Then there will be another study that says that it is fine and that all the bad press is bunk.

Recently (2010) more detailed studies show that in the amount of sodium that we consume in this country with all the other compounding medical stressors that we are developing (i.e., Heart Disease, Stroke, Diabetes, Hypertension, Metabolic Syndrome, Kidney Disease, and many more) we as a population are doing ourselves harm. Most recently the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have strongly recommended that we limit our intake of sodium in our diets.

The Recommended Daily Allowance for sodium is 1,500 mg per day, believe it or not, that equates to 1 teaspoon of salt per day. “Did that just say 1 teaspoon a day!?” When you really analyze what we as Americans get in our daily intake of sodium it on average is 3 to 5 times that. Sodium is in almost everything we eat.

What all these current studies are finding is that if we limit our sodium intake it decreases the chances of developing many diseases. The restrictions of 1,500 mg of sodium per day is especially important in the elderly and people with chronic medical conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney disease, and many others.

If you look at food labels they will infer that we consume a diet with an average of 2,400 mg of sodium per day.

“So much confusion! Just simplify it for me and give me some basic guidelines Doctor!!”

So here you go:

If you are elderly (I’m not touching that one), an African American Man,

or if you have major medical issues as listed above

You should probably try to monitor your sodium intake and do your best to keep around 1,500 mg per day.

If you are otherwise a healthy adult (18 to 65ish) you really do not have to worry too much. But don’t think that you are invincible and that nothing is going to hurt you.

If I had to give you a recommendation I would still keep your sodium intake under 2,500 mg. Even that will be considered pretty low sodium compared to what most of us normally get on a daily basis.

Now to the definition of what is “Low Sodium”. The FDA has some rather complicated terms and definitions for how the quantify the amount of sodium in foods. Below what I have done is to simplify it into plain English:

SALT/SODIUM FREE: less than 5 mg per labeled serving

VERY LOW SODIUM: 35 mg or less per serving

LOW SODIUM: 140 mg or less per serving

REDUCED or LESS SODIUM: 25% or less sodium than a similar food

LIGHT SODIUM: if food is “Low Calorie” and “Low Fat” sodium is reduced by 50%

Or if sodium is reduced by at least 50% then comparable food.

You see it can get quite complicated. What we have decided to do with all of our Sneals at Carbessentials is to identify all that have 140 mg of sodium or less. You can already find these sneals on-line at www.Carbessentials.net. On the left hand side of the screen you will see a new button that says, “Low Sodium Sneal”, if you click on that button you will only see Sneals that are designated as low in sodium (140 mg or less).

I hope you can appreciate the hard work that goes into providing to our patients/customers the absolute best quality nutrition in Quick, Convenient, Portable Single Serving, High Quality Morsels of Food that we lovingly call Sneals. Then what we have done is to go above and beyond and take over 1,000 products isolate them out into specialized categories is truly a labor of love. We now have the following categories:

Low Sugar Sneals

Low Sodium Sneals

Fiber Sneals

Caffeinated Sneals

Gluten Free Sneals

Lactose Free Sneals

Soy Free Sneals

Vegetarian Sneals

Kosher Sneals

Whey Only Sneals

I hope all this makes sense to you. Remember that you can follow us @:

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I love to write and educate so please check in on a regular basis and you will see something new. Remember I am the “purchasing agent” and I am always looking for and finding new and unique products that fit the definition of a Sneal. We add many new products to the store every month.

Hippocrates (the founding father of medicine) said,  “Make your food your medicine”. That is an incredibly intuitive statement for anyone to say but to think that he was alive over 2,000 years ago even makes it more powerful.

Dr. Ray Powell, MD

Medical Director

“Eat Right, Live Right, Feel Right”

“The Easy Way to Eat Right”

CarbEssentials was opened in early 2003 by Raymond Powell, MD and his wife Dominique Powell. Dr. Powell, a board certified bariatrician, and has treated thousands of medical weight loss patients in his clinics and is always looking for high-quality, nutritional products to help his patients achieve their goals.  He calls these foods sneals.

This search for sneals takes Dr. Powell all over the United States. He personally selects each product sold in his stores to ensure that they meet his strict nutrition criteria. A majority of the products are medical grade, but a growing number of products are from the sports nutrition and unique niche industries. All products are taste tested by his family, employees and patients.

He has coined a term called a Sneal.  That is how he shops for these nutritional items.  He understands the reality of most of our lives.  He understands that most of us have very busy lives and need high quality nutrition that has to be; quick, convenient, portable, single-serving, and has to taste great.  That is where the word sneal came up.  It is a way to teach his patients a whole new way to think about nutrition

Dr. Powell also treats a growing number of patients who have had or about to have Gastric Bypass surgery and for those that are beginning to regain their weight back. He also consults with many other Gastric Bypass patients who are confused about what they should eat and take as supplements to get adequate nutrition while keeping their weight down. He has spent countless hours researching companies offering specialized products for weight loss patients. These low to moderate carbohydrates, low fat products are also available to the public and are excellent nutritional products for anyone, whether you have had Gastric Bypass surgery, trying to lose weight, or just looking for great nutrition.

These sneals are great for kids to take to school.  Again they are quick, convenient, portable, single-serving, high quality morsels of food that taste great.  Perfect to help treat and prevent childhood obesity or just to give kids great food to eat through the day.

Whether you are a medical weight loss patient just trying to lose a few pounds, or an athlete trying to optimize your diet, try our low to moderate carb, low-fat, high-protein, nutritional items. CarbEssentials and the Sneal a better low carb diet solution.  You can learn more about Dr. Powell, MD and Snealing at www.Physiciansplan.net and www.Snealtime.com.  You can shop for sneals on-line at www.Carbessentials.net.

“Stop eating and go exercise!”

This is the most common misconception when it comes to obesity. Simplistic at best, and completely false at worse, it offers no real solution for those who are trying to lose weight. Why? Obesity is a disease and it must be treated as one.

The World Health Organization and the National Institute of Health both define obesity as a chronic relapsing medical disease. Let’s break that term down:

CHRONIC: You are not going to cure it. You are going to need to manage it for the rest of your life.

RELAPSING: Refers to chronic…you don’t just lose the weight once and expect it to

stay off. (Actually, many people do expect that.) It can come BACK.

MEDICAL DISEASE: It is a disease that needs to be treated. It’s not a weakness that the patient should just be able to get under control on their own.

Let’s take a look at diabetes, another chronic, relapsing, medical disease.

Here is a clinical example:

A 5′ 2″, 250 pounds, 48 year old Caucasian woman is in her doctor’s office and her lab work shows she has a fasting blood sugar (no food for 12 hours) of 180 mg/dL (normal is 99 mg/dL or less). Her doctor diagnoses her with Type 2 diabetes and gives her a prescription of an oral diabetes medicine. She may receive a referral to the diabetes educator or a one-time visit to a dietician.

After two weeks, the patient returns for a checkup with the doctor and a finger stick blood sugar shows a random blood sugar of 92 mg/dL. Does the doctor say, “that’s great!” “Now that your blood sugar is normal, you can stop the medication!?” Of course not! He/she is treating a Chronic Relapsing Medical Disease. If the medication is stopped, what will happen to the blood sugar? Yep, you guessed it, it will go back up!

If she could lose 10%-20% of her weight by changing the quality/quantity/and timing of her food guess what most likely would happen to her blood sugar? It would come way down. Though there is never a guarantee that it would normalize, but it’s a definite possibility. But notice what was not treated? Her obesity.

Here is another example. A 5′ 9″, 52 year old man that is 292 pounds has a blood pressure of 185/98 (High Blood Pressure). What will the doctor do? Obviously, the doctor will treat it. The patient gets put on a high blood pressure medicine.

Two weeks later, the same patient comes in with a blood pressure of 120/80. Does the doctor take the patient off the medicine? Well, NO. The doctor is treating a Chronic Relapsing Medical Disease. If the blood pressure medicine is stopped, what will happen to his blood pressure? It will go back up.

Again, if the patient got his nutrition under control and lost 10% of his weight what do you think would naturally happen to his blood pressure? It would go down. Which is the disease and which is the symptom?

The Disease is Obesity and the Symptom is High Blood Pressure.

You could say the same thing for patients with high cholesterol or a combination of hypertension, diabetes and high blood pressure.

The medical community treats all of these conditions. But we never treat the obesity. It has been well established that obesity can cause or even worsen many medical ailments.

Unfortunately, many in the medical community not only don’t treat obesity, they minimalize it. As a result, there are thirty thousand diets and two rows of weight loss remedies that are over-the-counter at Wal-Mart and your local grocery store. You don’t see two rows of blood pressure or diabetes remedies over-the-counter at Wal-Mart. They are behind the counter with the pharmacist. These obese patients are desperate and have to attempt to treat it themselves. Guess what? IT AIN’T WORKING!

Why as medical practitioners do we not treat obesity? Because we (the medical community) don’t know how. We are not even trained that obesity is a disease. Maybe the medical students of today are getting some education but for the majority of practitioners in the trenches of medical care, we don’t have the first clue on how to treat obesity.

In my experience, I cannot even remember seeing any education about obesity but I learned how to treat Malaria and Intermittent Acute Porphyria and in 11 years of practicing medicine have never seen a case of either. After seven years of medical training and achieving my first board certification in Emergency medicine, I had a major moment of realization in my own personal life. I was a 3^rd year senior emergency resident, I was 38 years old and I found myself at 250 pounds. This was the heaviest I had ever been and my weight was starting to cause some major medical issues.

I did Atkins, the Zone, Slim Fast, Sugar-Busters, and Atkins again, Nutra-Systems, Jenny Craig, South Beach and even Cabbage Soup Diet. I was desperate. I would lose weight, plateau then regain over and over. I, the doctor, had to self teach myself what I was not taught in my first seven years of medical training; how to treat my own obesity as a disease.

Obesity is incredibly complex. I’m not just talking about all the good and bad stressors in your life and all the medical conditions, medications and family dynamics, jobs, marriages, divorces, traveling, children, illnesses, man in your life, woman in your life, kids in your life or a variety of other contributors.

It is incredibly complex within all the intricacies of the body. There are numerous neurochemicals involved with the brain that mediate desires, satisfaction and hunger cravings. Our emotional and medical state can change those levels. The types of foods you eat can affect the different levels of these neurochemicals.

There are neuro (brain) gastro (intestine) endocrines (hormones) that communicate between the gut and the brain that also control your hunger, your satisfaction, your cravings. The fat cell itself has been found to be an incredibly complex cell that secretes over 10 different hormones that control your hunger and satisfaction.

Then, of course, the food you eat stimulates all of these signals that can cause satisfaction, pleasure (brief), or even worsen hunger. Yes, food can make you hungry! Then the food we eat affects blood sugar levels, which affects insulin levels, which in turn affect blood sugar levels, which can affect your brain chemicals which then affects your hunger.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift!

So, let me ask you this? Do you think “burning energy” (losing weight) is as simple as stop eating and go exercise?

When I am searching for new products to add to the CarbEssentials line, there are two very famous quotes that are the foundation of the criteria that I use. The first quote goes like this:

“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather cure and prevent disease with nutrition.”       Thomas Edison 1847-1931

Isn’t it sad to see that in the last 100 years that this has not happened?

The second quote:

“Make your food your medicine.”

Isn’t that a great thought process? If you take care of your body and eat better quality nutrition the body will take care of itself. That was said by a very wise man around 2200 years ago. Back when junk food didn’t exist and fast food meant you had to chase it down, Hippocrates knew that our bodies need quality nutrition to be healthy.

If you are struggling with the disease of obesity, you need to seek medical treatment from a specialist who is trained in the treatment of overweight and obesity. (Go to www.carbessentials.net for a link to the American Society Of Bariatric Physicians.)

There is something you can do first that is simple and will make an immediate difference. The first step in this whole process is to actually eat! Don’t go all day without eating because your life gets so damn busy and then eat all at once at the end of the day. Do you honestly think that is healthy for you?

The Carbessentials concept and the Sneal concept (www.Snealtime.com) matches perfectly with the philosophies of those two famous men. The foods available through www.Carbessentials.net are of the highest quality. They come in smaller amounts and most are single-servings to avoid overeating. By eating these “Sneals” every two to three hours throughout your day, your body will respond to you and you will have made your food your medicine.