The Salt Fix – by Dr. James DiNicolantonio

This book has a bold premise: high salt consumption is not, as global scientific consensus holds, a serious health risk, but rather, as the title suggests, a health fix.

Dr. DiNicolantonio, a pharmacist, explains how “our ancestors crawled out of the sea millions of years ago and we still crave that salt”, giving this as a reason why we should consume salt ad libitum, aiming for 8–10g per day, and thereafter a fair portion of the book is given over to discussing how many health conditions are caused/exacerbated by sugar, and that therefore we have demonized the wrong white crystal (scientific consensus is that there are many white crystals that can cause us harm).

Indeed, sugar can be a big health problem, but reading it at such length felt a lot like when all a politician can talk about is how their political rival is worse.

A lot of the studies the author cites to support the idea of healthy higher salt consumption rates were on non-human animals, and it’s always a lottery as to whether those results translate to humans or not. Also, many of the studies he’s citing are old and have methodological flaws, while others we could not find when we looked them up.

One of the sources cited is “my friend Jose tried this and it worked for him”.

Bottom line: sodium is an essential mineral that we do need to live, but we are not convinced that this book’s ideas have scientific merit. But are they well-argued? Also no.

Click here to check out The Salt Fix for yourself! It’s a fascinating book.

_{^{(Usually, if we do not approve of a book, we simply do not review it. We like to keep things positive. However, this one came up in Q&A, so it seemed appropriate to share our review. Also, the occasional negative review may reassure you, dear readers, that when we praise a book, we mean it)}}