Kempner Rice Diet

[Blossom]

Reduction of salt helped your low blood pressure? I have struggled with my blood pressure for my entire life its never been above 95/55 and many time was lower. Do you have any idea how that works?

I have clues but I’m still trying to tease out all the details. It seems to have something to do with our RAAS System (renin angiotensin aldosterone) being dysregulated although many people are dysregulated in the opposite direction. 90/60 is about the average for Yanomami Indian women (with extremely low sodium intakes) and when they were studied their RAAS adaptations were the opposite of what we see in modern living conditions. People will argue that this is a stressful adaptation to their primitive lifestyle but perhaps it is how our bodies are actually designed to work? It’s highly controversial of course.
What was stressful for me was having a bp of 75-80/55 and not being able to function. I now run around 95/65 so still on the low end of normal but I feel good and have no symptoms.

Are you symptomatic? We need adequate BP to sustain life and neither too high or too low is desirable but too low can actually be more acutely dangerous. My personal experience through all of this was that the more salt I consumed the more imbalanced I became as my body tried to get rid of it.

 

[LizRey86]

I have clues but I’m still trying to tease out all the details. It seems to have something to do with our RAAS System (renin angiotensin aldosterone) being dysregulated although many people are dysregulated in the opposite direction. 90/60 is about the average for Yanomami Indian women (with extremely low sodium intakes) and when they were studied their RAAS adaptations were the opposite of what we see in modern living conditions. People will argue that this is a stressful adaptation to their primitive lifestyle but perhaps it is how our bodies are actually designed to work? It’s highly controversial of course.
What was stressful for me was having a bp of 75-80/55 and not being able to function. I now run around 95/65 so still on the low end of normal but I feel good and have no symptoms. View attachment 62398
Are you symptomatic? We need adequate BP to sustain life and neither too high or too low is desirable but too low can actually be more acutely dangerous. My personal experience through all of this was that the more salt I consumed the more imbalanced I became as my body tried to get rid of it.

Yes, I have to get up slowly or I get dizzy, tingling hands and feet, I retain water like crazy. Its better than it was 6 months ago but still a lingering thing. Ill have to try and research this some more, Im starting to see alot of people saying they are dropping salt because of issues they are having and their problems are resolved. My interest is more peaked now, thankyou for the chart also!

 

[Blossom]

@LizRey86, Best wishes to you ma’am. Mine was a lifelong intermittent issue and quitting salt was a last ditch effort for me that I really didn’t expect to make a difference.
Here’s an interesting article explaining a bit more but it still doesn’t explain how it would impact low Blood Pressure. I’m going to keep digging though.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3317/jraas.2007.001

 

[Blossom]

“The lack of blood pressure increase with age was suggested to be due to the presence of chronic diseases and malnutrition 25,26. The authors observed no signs of malnutrition or protein deficiency in the participants of the Yanomami sample of the INTERSALT Study; on the contrary, the authors were impressed by the physical resistance of the Yanomami Indians, who are used to carrying a lot of weight through the forest for hours. Truswell et al 20 and Page et al 21 have also reported a good nutritional status in the isolated populations in Africa and in the Solomon Islands, where no increase in blood pressure with age was found.



The Yanomami Indians are evidence that an active lifestyle with little salt intake is possible. Oliver et al 6 have reported similar levels of Na+ excretion in Yanomami groups in Venezuela and have associated them with elevated plasma levels of renin and aldosterone. These hormonal adaptations to a very low Na+ intake may play an important role in maintaining and reabsorbing the Na+ filtered by the kidneys, and may reflect the human capacity to adapt to a sodium-salt-deficient diet, an adaptation originated in the predominantly vegetarian diet of human primate ancestors 27. This type of diet prevailed for thousands of years of human evolution, from nomadic food gatherer to hunter, before the development of agriculture and animal domestication and breeding 27,28.”

The Yanomami indians in the INTERSALT study

OBJECTIVE: To study the distribution and inter-relationship among constitutional and biochemical...

www.scielo.br

It may just be as simple as our bodies are designed/created/evolved to retain sodium which often results in hypertension to varying degrees for many people. I’m perhaps an outlier in the sense that my body wasn’t retaining enough until I got out of the high salt environment and my RAS/RAAS had to kick in and do the job. I’m just going with that explanation for now until I find out otherwise. :)

 

[ecstatichamster]

I wonder how long it takes to adjust salt appetite downwards to some level X.

 

[Blossom]

@ecstatichamster, I’ve read various reports from days to months. It seems highly individual. Here’s another good write up I found discussing the history of salt that mentions Dr. Kempner’s work and the Yanomami people.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305840/#:~:text=For%205%20million%20years%2C%20according,were%20fairly%20adapted%20to%20it.

 

[ecstatichamster]

@ecstatichamster, I’ve read various reports from days to months. It seems highly individual. Here’s another good write up I found discussing the history of salt that mentions Dr. Kempner’s work and the Yanomami people.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1305840/#:~:text=For%205%20million%20years%2C%20according,were%20fairly%20adapted%20to%20it.

Thank you so much.

 

[gabys225]

@ecstatichamster When I said it pushed detox too fast I feel it was due to the complete lack of fat in the diet. My too fast symptoms were panic I couldn't think my way out of, as well as tachycardia, and brain fog that was distinct from the electrolyte brain fog.

 

[ecstatichamster]

@ecstatichamster When I said it pushed detox too fast I feel it was due to the complete lack of fat in the diet. My too fast symptoms were panic I couldn't think my way out of, as well as tachycardia, and brain fog that was distinct from the electrolyte brain fog.

Thank you SO much for explaining. Do you think a few teaspoons of butter in the food would be helpful to prevent this?

 

[gabys225]

Thank you SO much for explaining. Do you think a few teaspoons of butter in the food would be helpful to prevent this?

Absolutely. If doing the Kempner diet for weight loss, adding some fat would simply slow the process down a bit. The Kempner diet really cranks the metabolic furnace because there's no fat to trigger the Randle cycle. So having a ripping metabolism + existing deficiencies + toxic fat stores means a lot of people are going to have a bad time and have no idea why. It's still very therapeutic, but it's prudent to keep these caveats in mind. I personally kept taking my B's and essential minerals while doing the Kempner diet.

 

[Blossom]

Here’s some more interesting information on salt. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/333/1/012036/pdf

This is a good editorial on the RAAS entitled-

From Living in Saltwater to a Scarcity of Salt and Water, and Then an Overabundance of Salt—The Biological Roller Coaster to Which the Renin–Angiotensin System Has Had to Adapt: An Editorial​

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375543630_From_Living_in_Saltwater_to_a_Scarcity_of_Salt_and_Water_and_Then_an_Overabundance_of_Salt-The_Biological_Roller_Coaster_to_Which_the_Renin-Angiotensin_System_Has_Had_to_Adapt_An_Editorial

 

[Cow]

I am having a really hard time adjusting salt use downwards. I've always had low BP and bad postural hypotension. Since my early 20's doctors told me to eat a lot of salt, to salt everything. I got totally addicted and came to put a literal layer of salt on everything. Now at 58, I have high BP and am having a hard time bringing it down. I'm trying to back of the salt but it is very hard and I'm not enjoying my food without it. Does anything else bring that unique acid tang that salt does to food?

 

[ecstatichamster]

great find, thanks @Blossom

I'm adding maybe 300mg to my milk and coffee and coconut water, just feel a bit better with a little salt added.

 

[ecstatichamster]

I am having a really hard time adjusting salt use downwards. I've always had low BP and bad postural hypotension. Since my early 20's doctors told me to eat a lot of salt, to salt everything. I got totally addicted and came to put a literal layer of salt on everything. Now at 58, I have high BP and am having a hard time bringing it down. I'm trying to back of the salt but it is very hard and I'm not enjoying my food without it. Does anything else bring that unique acid tang that salt does to food?

I really think this has to be done in stages maybe over a few months.

Your body starts to retain the sodium instead of flushing it out, and then your salt appetite diminishes.

The body judges salt intake by salt in food.

This study used the reverse, increasing salt either by tablets or by adding it to the subjects' food. The salt appetite judged by which soup tastes pleasant, increased with greater salting of food but not by taking salt tablets.

So by cutting back slowly I think we can lower our salt appetite and enjoy or food with very little salt.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0031938486901551

In previous studies with humans, moderate reduction of dietary sodium decreased preference for salty foods. It had been hypothesized that this occurred via reducing taste stimulation with salty foods. Taste function after increasing dietary salt (NaCl), either with or without increasing salt taste stimulation, was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, one group of subjects was required to add crystalline salt to food daily for 4 weeks. A second group ingested salt tablets for the same period. A third group ingested a placebo. Whereas urinary sodium excretion increased in both groups ingesting supplemental salt, the concentration of salt in soup rated as tasting most pleasant increased only in the group adding salt to food. Rated intensity of salt did not change. In Experiment 2, salt supplementation was extended to 6 weeks and taste function was tested more extensively. At the end of the experiment, the concentration of salt in soup rated as tasting most pleasant increased in the group which added the crystalline salt to food. This group also added more salt to soup to taste than did the salt tablet group. The most pleasant concentration of KCl in soup was not significantly affected. Taken together these two experiments suggest that the preferred concentration of salt in soup can be increased after dietary salt supplementation and that increased salt taste stimulation is probably required for this to occur.

 

[ecstatichamster]

salt appetite diminishes significantly as we lower salt intake. Enjoyment of high salt diminishes as we lower our salt intake. Weight loss people seem to not enjoy low or high salt as much as medium salt.

Effect of dietary sodium restriction on taste responses to sodium chloride: a longitudinal study - PubMed

Normotensive adults on low-sodium, weight-loss, and control diets recorded preferences and perceived saltiness for sodium chloride (NaCl) added to cream soup at intervals over 1 yr. Reduction in sodium intake and excretion accompanied a shift in preference toward less salt: preferred...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Normotensive adults on low-sodium, weight-loss, and control diets recorded preferences and perceived saltiness for sodium chloride (NaCl) added to cream soup at intervals over 1 yr.

Reduction in sodium intake and excretion accompanied a shift in preference toward less salt: preferred concentrations by ad libitum salting declined from 0.72% at the onset to 0.33% NaCl at week 24; hedonic scores for high concentrations of NaCl decreased significantly while scores for low concentrations increased. After 3 mo of sodium restriction, NaCl preferences readjusted to a lower level: ad libitum additions of NaCl were similar after 13, 24, and 52 wk. Less hedonic variation was observed among controls than among Na-restricted groups. The weight-loss group showed increased liking for mid-range NaCl levels. Mechanisms underlying preference changes, including physiological, behavioral, and context effects, may provide insights into maintenance of low-sodium diets for treatment and prevention of hypertension.

 

[Cow]

Thanks @ecstatichamster , that is encouraging. So far, I've gone from a blanket of salt on everything to a good sprinkling, which is still probably a lot, but it is a struggle and I find myself hunting for errant salt crystals on the plate so I can sweep them up. I've also stopped salting fruit. I just ate an unsalted apple, and it was so blah to me! I hate eating anything sweet without salting it. Not sure what the goal should be, maybe just a quick sprinkle on meals?

 

[Blossom]

great find, thanks @Blossom

I'm adding maybe 300mg to my milk and coffee and coconut water, just feel a bit better with a little salt added.

That makes sense. You know your body better than anyone else and what you can and can’t tolerate. I found this write up from an alternative health practitioner out of Australia.
“Beyond blood pressure
If you’re one of those people whose blood pressure does not decrease in response to a low sodium diet (remember, about 27 per cent of participants fell into this category), you may be thinking that you might as well just shake that salt cellar as much as you like. But the harms of salt ingestion go way beyond bumping up blood pressure: they actually change the amount of blood flowing to a crucial region in the brain.
That’s what researchers found when they studied blood flow patterns in the brains of rats, after an acute salt load. The increased concentration of sodium set off a cascade of compensatory mechanisms, the end result of which was decreased blood flow and oxygen levels in the hypothalamus, a deep brain region involved in critical body functions including drinking, eating, body temperature regulation and reproduction.
The lead author of the study spelled out the implications of this unexpected finding:
“If you chronically ingest a lot of salt, you’ll have hyperactivation of vasopressin neurons. This mechanism can then induce excessive hypoxia, which could lead to tissue damage in the brain.”
HOW SALT AFFECTS BLOOD FLOW IN THE BRAIN
And then there’s the immune-suppressing and pro-inflammatory effect of high sodium intake, which I discussed in Are you as-salting your immune system? In a nutshell (an unsalted one, of course), high concentrations of sodium impair the energy metabolism of immune cells’ mitochondria – the tiny ‘power plants’ that convert glucose (blood sugar) into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the universal currency of energy within all cells. Without sufficient ATP, immune cells are underpowered to fight off infection, and instead respond by spewing out inflammatory chemicals.”

A truly low salt diet lowers blood pressure as effectively as medicine - in one week

How low should your salt intake go to tame high blood pressure?

empowertotalhealth.com.au

 

[Blossom]

This might explain why some people experience less inflammation on a low salt diet.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5538905/

 

[Orome]

Thanks @ecstatichamster for posting this. I didn't know Walter Kempner at all before. Very interesting.

 

[paymanz]

I have struggle understanding to what degree can We go sugar adapted vs fat adapted. And really what's preffered fuel for our cells.

What I'm sure is as ray said for blood sugar it all depends on you body's glycogen stores.but If you eat sugar when you're glycogen stores are full it ends up in a mess. Ray didn't mention that part as far as I'm aware.

Regardless, sugar burning metabolism superiority is the more co2.

The key point in the rice diet is to eat carbs when your body has room to store glycogen.