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DIET FOR PEOPLE WITH MENIERE'S DISEASE
Special warning about diuretics ('fluid tablets')
Similarities in cellular structure between the labyrinth and the tubules in the kidney have provided a theoretical argument for prescribing diuretics (drugs that make the kidney excrete sodium faster than normal). In practice however, people who obtain a sodium excretion rate below 50 mmol/day and a potassium excretion rate above 50 mmol/day, routinely report a better result than they were getting previously with a diuretic.
Below 50 mmol/day diuretics must be stopped, as there is a danger of hyponatraemia (abnormally low blood sodium) when the body has no excess sodium. This can be severe enough to require hospital admission, and even life-threatening. This is most important for elderly women, and especially for combination diuretics such as Dyazide and Moduretic.
Alleged hazards of avoiding salt
Like the tobacco industry, the huge salt industry is threatened by declining sales, and a commercial ploy is to issue media releases periodically that cast doubt on the effectiveness and safety of avoiding salt. However the international dietary guidelines and definition of low salt foods are fully endorsed by our own National Health & Medical Research Council and Kelloggs are planning 'functional foods' for high blood pressure, which will rely on the effectiveness and safety of low salt diets.
The technology for manufacturing salt dates only from the Bronze Age. Infants still thrive on a 'salt-free' diet of breast milk with a sodium content of 14 mg/l00g. Sodium deficiency is not a public health problem anywhere, unlike iodine deficiency, which affects an estimated 800 million people world-wide. The Yanomama Indians excrete less than 1.0 mmol of sodium/ day, but have never been offered salt. Incidentally, iodized salt is not needed for health in any Australian state now, (including Tasmania), but if you would like some iodine, you can always take kelp tablets. Of course alcoholics who stop drinking are at risk of delirium tremens, and theoretically a low salt diet adopted after 50 years of excessive intake could cause a problem of some sort, especially in the presence of other illness.
The Salt Skip Program warns people about the following: pregnancy, gastro-intestinal fistula, ileostomy, Addison's disease, cystic fibrosis, advanced kidney failure, extensive burns, eczema or other exudative skin diseases or medication with lithium, diuretics or ACE inhibitors. If future research discovers any other authentic warnings the Salt Skip Program will publish them.
The Salt Skip Program warns pregnant women not to alter their salt intake except under medical advice and supervision. On the other hand a low salt diet adopted before pregnancy should be continued during pregnancy, as happened for 2.5 million years before we acquired the technology for manufacturing salt, and still happens safely in the world's most salt-free' society.
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GENERAL HEALTH
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