Sea Salt Pseudoscience

The obsession with sea salt, and subsequent demonization of iodized salt, has gotten out of control. Articles like this - see here- from the less than credible OrganicAuthority lead one to believe that not using Himalayan salt is having consumers miss out on a "full spectrum" of 84 minerals and trace elements, and that consuming refined salt, like iodized table salt, is somehow toxic. To quote OrganicAuthority (OA), "The final product is virtually lifeless, because the lack of active, living enzymatic and nutritional properties ensures a longer shelf life." Because minerals are full of life? The first thing that should set off your quack-dar is that there are 16 essential minerals for humans, and only 28 elements essential for human life (see here) - what are those other 50some doing? Another incredibly inaccurate write up can be found here at Natural News.

I can't seem to find scholarly sources on this, but SaltNews lists their data from a spectral analysis of Himalayan Sea Salt - see here. The majority of the product is sodium and chloride (just like table salt!). The majority of the minerals listed serves no purpose in the human body, regardless of them being natural, and are present in such small quantities that they are irrelevant.

The OA article states that Himalayan salt contains Iodine, and that refining salt caused iodine deficiency. To quote them, "doctors noticed that those who consumed refined salt began to develop chronic degenerative diseases, often incited by a lack of iodine in salt. Salt refiners then began to add iodine to salt, hoping to fill the gap. What they did, however, was miss the entire point altogether. Unrefined salt, such as Himalayan salt, not only contains iodine, a naturally occurring mineral, but also more than 80 other minerals. Refining salt in the first place not only stripped salt of its iodine content but also of its entire mineral profile". 

^^That's a cute story, but the iodine in Himalayan sea salt exists at less than .01g/kg of salt. The IOM recommends 1500mg of sodium as an Adequate Intake - this is equivalent to 3.8g of salt. If there is less than .01g/kg of iodine in salt, then there is less than .00001g/g. This means there is less than 10mcg per gram of sea salt. Even someone consuming ALL of the AI of sodium per day (highly unlikely, and not recommended) from Himalayan sea salt would only be consuming  less than 38mcg of iodine. ¼ teaspoon of iodized table salt (you know, that refined ‘toxic’ stuff) contains about 71mcg and about 580mg of sodium – “refined salt” is notably superior to Himalayan salt in its iodine content, and Himalayan salt does not contain enough iodine to deter iodine deficiency, outside the context of an iodine rich diet. Goiters happen when regularly consuming  less than 50mcg/day and cretinism at  less than 30mcg/day (4). The recommended intakes for iodine are 150mcg/d for adults.  No age group would get enough iodine from Himalayan salt consumption, even if all of the sodium consumed per day came from this source. When consuming most of your sodium from Himalayan sea salt, one must be sure to be getting adequate amounts from other sources – when it was decided to fortify refined salt with Iodine, it’s because there wasn’t adequate intake, not because the government/health officials are stupid and removed the iodine from the salt.  Fortification of salt with iodine has been an internationally effective method of increasing iodine intake and is supported by the WHO (2).

What about all of those other minerals? Looking at some other essential minerals per gram of salt (with their DRI's in parentheses (3)), we see:

Magnesium (310-420mg/d)  - .16mg/g

Phosphorus (700mg/d) - less than 10ppm (less than .0001mg/g)

Potassium (4700mg/d) - 3.5mg/g
Calcium (1000mg/d) - 4.05mg/g
Chromium (25-35mcg/d) - .05ppm (.05mcg/g)
Manganese (1.8-2.3mg/d) - .27ppm (.00027mg/g)
Iron (8-18mg/d) - 38.9ppm (.0389mg/g)
Zinc (8-11mg/d) - 2.38ppm (.00238mg/g)
Selenium (55mcg/d) - .05ppm (.05mcg/g)

As you can see, the Himalayan salt does not offer an even remotely relevant amount of any of these minerals per gram, or if you consumed all of your sodium intake per day from it. There is quite literally no nutritional benefit coming from consuming Himalayan sea salt’s mineral content.

It should also be noted that iodine is a bigger issue than most have made it out to be - the American Academy of Pediatrics just released a report on the high incidence of iodine deficiency in pregnant women - see here. Pregnant women need even more iodine than adults to satisfy the needs of their children - the DRI increases to 220mcg/d during pregnancy and 290mcg/d during lactation. This is particularly problematic for me because, in working in the area of maternal nutrition, many moms, especially on forums, discuss nutrition, and are looking to minimize their infants exposure to 'toxins'. See WellnessMama - here - proclaiming that table salt is bad! She notes that it contains aluminum - if you're concerned about Aluminum and Alzhimer's, I encourage you to read Steven Novella's post - here - in short, there's no evidence that it's a causative agent, and the research on its role in the disease is very mixed, but provides several lines of evidence to suggest that it's role is extremely minor or non-existant (i.e. kidney failure patients have impaired aluminum clearance but no higher risk of Alzhimer's, Aluminum is not found in beta amyloid plaques). Aluminum is found in many foods - for example, green tea contains 520mcg/g (6). Dietary intake estimates from the FDA's Total Diet Study found Aluminum intake to range from 2-14mg/day, depending on age range (7). Aluminum content per individual packet of table salt was anywhere from .0045-.22mg (8). Suffice to say, i'm not worried about aluminum in my table salt causing Alzheimer's. Neither is the WHO (9). And neither should pregnant moms - they should have, be concerned with their iodine intake, and regular use of iodized salt can play an important role in meeting these needs. Iodine deficiency is the actual toxic issue here.

I personally find the taste of sea salt better than table salt - and I make sure to get my Iodine from other sources. Excellent sources include: seaweeds, sea foods (shrimp, oysters, cod, tuna), and dairy products (5). For weeks when I don’t find myself eating much of these, I have a kelp extract supplement that I’ll take once. Note that most plant foods vary in their iodine content, depending on the soil they grew in, and wild salmon are not a reliable source of Iodine, because their lifecycles include both fresh and salt water components (fish get their iodine from eating seaweed or eating smaller fish that eat seaweed).

If you want to use sea salts, that’s fine – but don’t listen to pseudoscience that tells you they’re good sources of iodine and contain a bunch of health promoting minerals.

1.http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002421.htm
2. http://www.who.int/elena/titles/salt_iodization/en/
3.http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Nutrition/DRIs/DRI_Elements.pdf
4. http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/iodine-facts#.U6Jpg42VkSQ
5. http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine-HealthProfessional/
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8254994
7. http://www.nutrientdataconf.org/PastConf/NDBC12/2-3_Pennington.pdf
8.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16019791
9. http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/en/aluminium.pdf