I've noticed a variety of attitudes towards salt consumption on the
list. It seems to be an area of controversy among the "experts". In
Mercola's diet recommendations he says low sodium diets cause problems
for some people and recommends sea salt, but doesn't offer any
references. Enig and Fallon promote a pretty high salt intake, including
recommending such high sodium foods as brined pickles and sauerkraut.
But many others, including Loren Cordain, strongly advise against excess
sodium intake and claim that in the paleolithic, sodium intake was a
small fraction of potassium intake. Here are links to a series of three
articles on Na/K that point to sodium's involvement in a host of health
problems (not just high blood pressure), and then a clip from a posting
to the paleodiet list by Cordain concerning salt and cancer (not just
stomach cancer, but maybe all cancers).

Sodium-potassium articles:
<http://www.nutritionfocus.com/nutrition_library/potassium_sodium.html>
<http://www.nutritionfocus.com/nutrition_library/Potassium%20_to%20_Sodium_Ratio.html>
<http://www.nutritionfocus.com/images/potassiumto.htm>

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PALEODIET archives -- May 1998 (#32)

 Date:         Mon, 11 May 1998 10:31:00 -0600
 Reply-To:     Paleolithic Diet Symposium List
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 Sender:       Paleolithic Diet Symposium List
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 From:         Loren Cordain <[log in to unmask]>
 Subject:      Re: Sodium and cancer

        In a previous post, Staffan and Dean noted that there is strong
experimental as well as epidemiological evidence to incriminate dietary
salt (actually sodium) in the etiology of stomach cancer.   Less well
appreciated is the evidence to suggest that dietary sodium may act as a
universal promoter of  multiple cancers separate from the
gastrointestinal tract. Although the notion that dietary sodium may
influence the development of a wide variety of cancers may at first seem
to be unfounded, there is sufficient data from a number of lines of
evidence to point to this connection. There is a well established link
between dietary sodium and hypertension.  Therefore, if sodium is
somehow related to the promotion of cancer, there should be an
epidemiological relationship between hypertension and cancer mortality.
And indeed there is, although the information is relatively obscure and
unrecognized.  I have included 4 references (1,2,3,4) which show this
link...