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hey welcome everyone i have a very special  guest today um on a book that i wanted to  

actually two books that i want to interview this  Dr. James DiNicolantonio so welcome thanks for  

having me on dr berg appreciate it absolutely  i’m guessing that’s an italian name right  

yes it is indeed just a wild guess so listen  um i want to just dive right in um you wrote  

a very fascinating book actually too i want  to cover the first one first called the salt  

fix and that’s such a confusing topic to so many  people and there’s a lot of false information so i  

want to pick your brain if you don’t mind and get  some data on this we’ve all been told that salt is  

bad for us and it causes high blood pressure etc  etc um give us some basics on what you found with  

salt sure well i think um even back from an  evolutionary perspective in the book i talk  

about this we’ve had this preconceived notion  that our ancestors ate this very low salt diet  

um and these are based on calculations  um simply looking at um land muscle meat  

so not aquatic vegetation or aquatic animals  and not um nose to towel where we would have  

consumed the salty blood and interstitial fluid  but simply looking at a piece of meat and so  

those calculations had put our paleolithic  ancestors are consuming about 500 milligrams  

of sodium per day but if you look at it from  the perspective of consuming nose to tail  

and the fact that we would actually follow animals  to salt licks and we could consume salt directly  

that that’s just a complete falsehood and  a very low estimation of how much salt we  

would have consumed so yeah uh you had a question  potentially i was just gonna say like uh i think  

what we’re told is um a certain amount like how  much what what from your viewpoint what is the  

um the recommended amount of salt um i guess we  can do it in teaspoons it’d be easier or a half  

a teaspoon or teaspoon well so the american  heart association essentially recommends less  

than a half of a teaspoon of salt per day however  they also recommend that we should be exercising  

an hour per day and we actually lose about a  half a teaspoon of salt per hour of exercise  

through sweat um and then you have the us dietary  guidelines that recommend less than a teaspoon  

of salt per day now from actually all the  prospective studies the lowest risk of  

death or heart attacks is actually a consuming  about one and a half teaspoons of salt per day  

or about you know 3.4 grams of sodium is  essentially where the lowest rates of mortality  

cardiovascular disease things like that  actually set and not to mention the other big  

recommendation is to drink a ton of water right  you start drinking more water you have low salts  

then you develop hyponatremia and you have  a whole series of issues with that alone  

you’re exercising and sweating right and i mean  most of us do are consuming caffeine and i didn’t  

realize up until a couple years ago how actually  caffeine the reason why it causes diuresis is  

because it causes us to lose sodium and chloride  so it is it causes natural recess so the typical  

loss of sodium from four cups of coffee is a half  a teaspoon of salt or about 1200 milligrams of  

sodium wow i didn’t know that that’s fascinating  so you know all of us are the our java junkies now  

are consuming caffeinated sports beverages and it  that is slowly depleting you of both sodium and  

actually even more chloride for some reason  caffeine in coffee is a tremendous chloride  

waster about even two times higher than the  amount of sodium we lose so the typical athlete  

you know who sweats you know half a teaspoon of  salt out per hour they’re also losing iodine too  

through swat so you typically lose about 50 to  100 micrograms of iodine per hour of exercise  

and so if you’re constantly sweating out salt  in iodine and you’re never replacing those  

things that can lead to hypothyroidism low  salt hyponatremia poor exercise talents wow  

now um if you’re let’s say you’re a football  player and it’s it’s summer and you’re you’re  

in practice i’ve heard that um if you’re doing  some type of intense exercise you could lose up to  

six grams of salt or at least sodium per per i  guess workout that’s like an ungodly amount of  

loss of electrolyte that’s true so in in the salt  fix i actually do cite one study it was um soccer  

players in practice in the heat and the goal i  believe it was the goalie lost 6 000 milligrams of  

sodium in the one hour of practice and i think the  average loss was about 1800 milligrams of sodium  

per hour but certain individuals can lose you know  six grams or six thousand milligrams excuse me  

six grams of sodium wow now as far as what  people um should be eating and they’re let’s  

say they’re concerned about um well there’s  their doctor said there’s certain studies  

what does the actual now you mentioned  the studies that say well if you consume  

at one and a half teaspoons then you start to  have issues is that true or just incomplete data  

i think um so we have to look at salt which  is sodium and chloride from the perspective of  

overall dietary intake because if you consume  a good amount of potassium bicarbonate fruits  

vegetables citrate things that are increasing  your alkalinity you can handle and tolerate much  

higher levels of salt that’s what that’s what i  was going to bring up yeah it’s a huge it’s so  

people that are salt sensitive typically a are  either insulin resistant and you fix their you  

know high insulin levels and they they’re no  longer self-sensitive so it’s really they’re  

sugar-sensitive in a way these people it’s just  showing up as salt sensitivity or you increase  

their potassium magnesium and bicarbonate forming  substances either potassium citrate or bicarbonate  

and you’re going to be able to virtually  eliminate salt sensitivity in probably 99 people  

that’s just a point that i want to bring up  because i found that um the great majority of the  

population have no idea that they the quantity of  potassium need to need so they’re usually going to  

be under doing it especially if they’re you know  an average american consumes like one and a half  

cups of greens and so now we’re going to get low  potassium now you’re going to have more tendency  

to be more sensitive to sodium just because  that ratio is not there so you can’t buffer it  

so i guess they didn’t play in they didn’t talk  about that or study that variable uh with people  

i don’t know if they looked at the potassium  levels when they checked the sensitivity to  

salt at all maybe they didn’t i don’t know right  and well that’s that’s the thing and it’s very  

difficult to actually find studies testing this  out and i do mention a couple in the sulfix  

where they actually took these high salt consuming  japanese people who had high blood pressure they  

were consuming 15 grams of salt so about twice  what we typically consume or most people only  

consume about 8 grams of salt per day in the  united states and they decided to raise their  

potassium intake from 3 grams to 7 grams  and they kept the high salt intake the same  

and it significantly reduced blood pressure  essentially to a normotensive state or normal  

blood pressure so it goes to show you  you can consume a very high salt diet  

as long as you get the potassium level  fairly high got it um now as far as what  

you recommend um that an average consumer should  consume how much salt should they be consuming  

if someone is eating a whole food diet right so  they’re not consuming these high refined carbs and  

sugars then really that one and a half teaspoons  is perfect for someone because when you start  

going below three grams of sodium you start to  see the increases in the sodium retaining stress  

hormones aldosterone renin angiotensin ii that  is indicating that your body is in a stressed out  

state to retain the salt and so you always want  to keep the body in homeostasis and that starts to  

separate from homeostasis as soon as you go below  three grams of sodium per day so this brings up an  

interesting point you’re saying or talking about  if someone’s not consuming enough salt the body  

can then start stressing out and activating more  adrenal hormones and other hormones right correct  

right and even in animal studies this is really  interesting if you put them on a low salt diet  

they have to continuously secrete the  sodium retaining hormone called aldosterone  

and that has been shown to lead to hypertrophy of  the adrenal glands and that can lead to adrenal  

fatigue but it’s physiologically you can see it on  a hypertrophied adrenal gland from a low salt diet  

so you can see that this would play out in  humans as well if you’re constantly pushing out  

10 times the amount of aldosterone because  you’re on a low salt diet that can potentially  

hypertrophy the adrenal glands and lead to adrenal  burnout wow is there any data that shows that  

doing a low sodium diet can trigger increased  cortisol that’s a good that’s a good question  

i don’t know not sure but i would assume that  it would because you are stressing the body out  

and cortisol helps retain salt a little bit  but it’s what i call the the sodium releaser  

in the body um it has if you are stressed  out and you’re trying to run away from a lion  

the cortisol helps the body to release the sodium  increase blood volume so you can run longer  

well aldosterone is the salt store so it helps  you store now when someone has a condition  

where they’re completely shot their adrenals  are shot and they have the condition called  

addison’s where they don’t have any more adrenal  function then they they have to consume salt like  

24 7 right because they have a hold of  bucket there’s no retention of that salt  

right i actually in this in the salt fix i  have this unique story it was a child that was  

constantly raiding the um the kitchen cabinet and  just consuming just ungodly amounts of salt and  

the the mother was obviously concerned and they  hospitalized this child not realizing that the  

child had salt wasting kidney disease and the  child ended up dying because they essentially  

restrained the child on the bed from being able  to go and get the salt that his body was telling  

him he needed and so right you’re correct when you  start losing the cortisol and the adrenal hormone  

functions then you’re going to start wasting  more salt yeah interesting um what about you you  

mentioned this briefly i want to know a little  bit more about insulin resistance so you take  

a typical person who’s insulin resistant um they  want to get on keto uh if you’re insulin resistant  

um you have do you have a problem retaining  salt or you just can’t absorb it or what happens  

so typically if you’re if you haven’t damaged  the kidneys which can cause salt wasting  

and you’re sort of maybe early on or  middle stage in your insulin resistance  

it’s causing you to over attain salt um and  essentially that’s because as insulin levels  

increase it tells the kidneys to hold on to more  sodium so as soon as you drop the high refined  

carbohydrate intake and lower the insulin levels  your kidneys will then start flushing yourself  

out of salt and typically most salt sensitive  people become fixed once they do that this is why  

you see diabetics uh have these swollen ankles  and they’re just filled with fluid like crazy  

right they’re just holding they’re like a a water  water log basically they are they are water logged  

and it’s also due to the elevation glucose because  glucose also has an osmotic effect as well like  

sodium it pulls fluid out of the cell into  the plasma volume so we have so we have  

that effect and then we also have the storage of  glucose as glycogen you store three molecules of  

fluid or water for every one molecule of glycogen  so there’s a there’s a lot of different dynamics  

happening that you’re holding fluid so that’s  fascinating um as far as the quality of um salt um  

what type of salt do you recommend of course  i’m guessing it’s not going to be table salt  

yeah i mean i do appreciate the the pink salts  yeah because they contain natural iodine so the  

biggest question they get is if someone purchases  a pink salt it’ll say not a good source of iodide  

d e and that’s because they’re not artificially  adding iodide to the salt it just naturally  

contains iodine so the fda makes them state  that it is not a good source of iodine  

but your pink salts do contain natural amounts of  iodine in fairly clinically significant amounts so  

i like either the original himalayan pink salt  which um seems to have about 25 micrograms of  

iodine per 10 grams of salt and uh redmond real  salt which their mineral analysis indicates 170  

micrograms of iodine per 10 grams of salt so  depending on if you are sweating a lot and  

if you’re not getting a lot of iodine in the  diet maybe a redmond is a better salt for you  

if you are someone who already gets a lot of  iodine you’re eating a lot of pastured eggs  

you’re drinking their uh milk or eating cheese  and you’re not sweating a whole lot maybe a  

lower either in salt pink’s himalayan salt would  be better interesting um if someone’s going to  

do a ketogenic diet and they want to consume one  and a half teaspoons and they’re you know they’re  

they’re sprinkling on their food but then they’re  short so do you recommend just putting some salt  

in some water dissolving it and drinking it or  how would you recommend to consume that salt  

it depends on the person i i’ve noticed that some  people like to take salt straight and then wash  

blew it down whereas some other people like to  take it as a shot or they’ll put a little bit of  

lemon juice a little bit of water maybe just one  ounce and just take it like a quick shot it really  

depends on the person and i think you know it  also depends on your activity level too because  

if you’re going if you’re someone who  works out intensely for an hour per day  

you probably want to get a  half a teaspoon of salt in you  

you know 60 minutes before the workout to boost  blood volume boost performance reduce hyponatremia  

interesting when someone goes on a  ketogenic diet and they lose all this fluid  

and they don’t take enough salt what are some  of the top symptoms that they’re going to get

that’s a good question um based on the clinical  studies we know that it leads to sleep disturbance  

fatigue and erectile dysfunction based  on actual people that i’ve talked to um  

the most emails that i’ve gotten like a couple  hundred emails have been people that have had afib  

and just added back salt and it instantly went  away their atrial fibrillation i’ve gotten the  

most emails about that so i’m not saying that  that can um do that for your individual case but  

um for some reason salt is obviously is  important for conductivity electrical  

impulses that seems to be a big driver  and it could be due to the fact that salt  

controls magnesium when you don’t get enough  salt you start to pull sodium but also magnesium  

and calcium from the bone and that can lead to  negative magnesium and calcium balance if you’re  

low in salt and so simply adding the salt back can  also fix magnesium deficiency if you’re pulling  

it from the bone and then muscle cramps exercise  intolerance are very common symptoms but dizziness  

going from a seated to a standing position as  well is very common and then muscle cramps too  

yes i i’ve noticed just from also talking with  like hundreds of people uh muscle weakness do  

you feel weaker i guess that would be kind of  a fatigue but you feel kind of weak and then  

you take salt and just kind of come right up you  feel stronger obviously you you need i mean in all  

your cells you have not only the sodium potassium  pump but you have um sodium interaction between  

your nervous system and the muscles i mean  there’s a it’s a required electrolyte obviously  

yeah sodium sodium allows you to pull glucose  into the cell amino acids into the cell it  

allows you to get acid out of the cell it allows  almost every single neurotransmitter to be moved  

in and out of the cells of the brain it allows  you to absorb vitamin c and put vitamin c into  

the brain into the adrenal glands into the bone  you can actually induce osteoporosis in animals  

by simply lowering their sodium level in the blood  preventing vitamin c from getting into the bone so  

it’s really interesting sodium is the universal  molecule that is used to move almost any single  

substance in the body fascinating now let’s  switch to chlorides so you get sodium chloride  

as far as building up your stomach acids for  example making hydrochloric acid if you’re low on  

chlorides what type of problems could occur almost  any nutrient deficiency would happen then because  

you need that stomach acid to in order to digest  your food and then in order to absorb nutrients so  

you can see things like small intestinal bacterial  overgrowth or a lot of bloating if you don’t have  

good stomach acid which could be due to a low  salt intake and this has actually been tested  

out in studies people have gone from a normal salt  intake to a low salt intake and it’s significantly  

reduces the the acid in the stomach and raises the  ph of the stomach so it’s important to keep a very  

acidic stomach and you cannot make chloride  we can’t synthesize it you have to get it by  

eating salt fascinating that’s awesome well that’s  awesome so let’s switch to your your other book  

that actually was co-authored by uh sim land which  uh he came to my summit uh the last last year um  

it’s called the immune fix so tell us a little bit  about that book in very simple layman’s terms i  

know it’s you’re giving a lot of uh natural things  but give us a little bit more data on that book  

so the immunity fix was borne out  by some of my publications in the  

academic literature i was trying to figure  out what potential nutraceutical strategies  

may help against rna viruses including coronavirus  and we actually published a probably the first  

review paper in february it was press release  by elsevier on this on this potential strategy  

and then i said you know i need to really turn  this into a book because nobody reads academic  

literature and it ended up turning into this  2500 referenced sort of like bible on immunity  

but in in essence and we’re really not being told  this and you know by you know the common process  

is that you are in control of your own immune  health and how healthy you are metabolically and  

how your nutrition status is can directly  determine how well you can fight off viruses  

and i’ll give you a really great example of this  there’s a virus an rna virus called coxy virus  

and in some kids it causes hand foot and mouth  and in most people it doesn’t cause anything  

you don’t even know you have it but if you’re  deficient in just one mineral selenium it causes  

ketone disease which leads to cardiomyopathy  and death and you treat those people who have  

this rna viral infection that are dying by simply  giving them selenium because selenium is important  

for your antioxidant status right increasing  glutathione thought making thyroid hormones  

so it goes to show you that your resilience  which depends on your metabolic health and  

your nutrient status directly determines how  well you are going to handle any type of virus  

the elephant in the room is that there’s a  huge huge omission with this whole coveted  

situation going on it’s like there’s no no real  focus on building up your own immune system  

which is ultimately your greatest protection  instead it’s all about avoiding this pathogen  

and trying to stay clean and be sterile but it’s  it’s a huge missing thing and i know in your  

book that you go into uh major details so this  book is also really good for people that are um  

uh unders want to know all the details um i mean  your immune system also needs salt and chlorides  

as they’re they use that as part of their  weapons to kill off certain things and so um  

so you cover that in great great depth um one  quick question about viruses in general um  

in your book you get a lot more into  it but what what is what is like  

maybe the top nutrient that someone needs to  focus on more if if they’re concerned about  

a weak immune system and viral protection i  would say the two nutrients because they’re  

very highly linked is magnesium and vitamin  d and so you have one billion people globally  

that are vitamin d deficient and half the global  population is vitamin d insufficient so and that  

increases if you are severely d deficient that  increases your risk of dying from cova 19 by 15  

fold and you can’t change how old you are but  you can certainly fix your vitamin d levels  

um and then magnesium is required to activate  vitamin d in the body of these hydroxylase enzymes  

and about 50 of the us population is deficient in  magnesium so taking those two together are very  

important for maintaining a healthy immune system  see i thought i thought you’re going to say zinc  

but but when you said magnesium you’re basically  you’re telling me that um which makes sense  

magnesium is required for vitamin d so without  vitamin d if was that that’s like your weak thing  

so if you’re low on magnesium the vitamin  d really won’t work that well right all  

so i think what you’re saying is like vitamin d is  like the pinnacle the most important thing because  

it’s like the immune modulator  

well right and you have these vitamin d receptors  on almost all of your immune cells and in order  

to activate those you have to form the active  hormone called calcitriol and once calcitriol  

binds to those receptors you can get you fix sort  of like these over active inflammation when you do  

that but in order to get the calcitriol you need  the magnesium to convert d to the active hormone

what about um some of the worst foods that someone  should avoid for their immune system probably the  

worst would be the omega-6 seed oils and not only  from the fact that they’re highly oxidized and you  

form more oxidation products in the acidity  of your stomach when you consume these oils  

which is very damaging to the gut and then you  don’t absorb nutrients once you damage the god  

but the fact that omega-6 will actually get into  almost every single immune cell and once you start  

saturating your immune cells with omega-6 they  start producing more pro-inflammatory cytokines so  

that would be the number one thing to avoid is the  corn oil right safflower soybean oils that a lot  

of people are cooking with absolutely um and then  of course uh then on the flip side maybe omega-3  

would be good to take as well right yeah so many  people are deficient in omega-3s and that helps  

to form these you know pro-resolvents that help  result literally this is how our body resolves  

inflammation it’s utilizing things like epa and  dha and forming these these substances called  

resolvence and protectants and it’s essentially  how our body heals from inflammation well this  

has been an incredible interview everyone’s going  to love this data i put both of your links down  

below for both of your books and i highly suggest  you guys get these two books they’re fascinating  

one is called the salt fix and the other one  is called the immunity fix because it’s all  

about just gaining knowledge to not just about  you know treating symptoms but getting rid of  

getting to the core getting to the cause so thank  you so much for your time thanks for having me on