RHODEN - The FlavorDoctor Diet: Lose Salt! Lose Weight! Be Healthy!

LOSE SALT! LOSE WEIGHT! BE HEALTHY!

Foreword by Actor Morgan Freeman

Written by

Dr. Chad Rhoden MD PhD

internationally published author

Dr. Rick Rhoden MD

With

Suzanna Rula, RD

and edited by Kristin Johnson

Published by:

Library Tales Publishing, Inc.

511 6th Avenue #56

New York, NY 10011

www.LibraryTalesPublishing.com

Copyright 2015 by Chad Rhoden.

Published by Library Tales Publishing, Inc., New York, New York

Foreword by Morgan Freeman

When Dr. Chad Rhoden approached our restaurant with his mission and products, we were more than happy to support his efforts, consistent with our commitment to assist in the well being of the state of Mississippi in several ways. Our restaurant was compelled to assist efforts to promote better nutrition by offering customers a healthier yet tasteful option to salt. After sampling the FlavorDoctor, it became a permanent ingredient in almost all of our signature dishes. FlavorDoctor allowed us to minimize the use of salt in our recipes without compromising taste. We continue to be proud supporters of the National Salt Reduction Initiative and continue to support Dr. Rhodens mission as well as the FlavorDoctor products.

Chapter 1

Physiology 101: Sodium, Blood

Pressure and Weight Gain

I f you are reading this, then youre taking the steps to lose weight and change your lifestyle. Or at the minimum you are thinking about it. Your doctor, your friends and the information in the media may be telling you that you can lose the weightall you need to do is cut back on fat and sugar, because thats causing your weight gain.

While saturated fat/trans fats and sugar contribute to weight gain, another culprit is hidden and not often talked about: salt!

All weight gain includes three components:

1) Fat

2) Lean weight, or the total weight of organs, bones and muscles

3) Water

Salt also enters into the weight picture through water gain. But first, lets look at fat and lean weight.

The Lean Weight and Fat Team

As human beings gain weight, the three contributing components of fat, lean weight and water vary according to several factors, most commonly diet, activity level and genetics. The time taken to gain the extra weight also factors in. We can see this in the extreme case, where a person gains a greater percentage of fat if he or she takes in too much energy, has low or no physical activity, and gains weight in a matter of weeks. In this case, extra fat stores will most likely make up as much as 90 percent of the excess weight. This is why lean weight, which refers to all the tissues in the body other than fat, is not your total body weight. However, your lean body weight does go up as your body fat increases in order for your muscles to carry that greater amount of fat. Water comes into play because 50-60 percent of all that lean weight is water.

Thus, a percentage of any gain will comprise lean weight and water. Increased daily sodium intake most often causes water gain.

Water and Sodium

We already have sodium as part of our body chemistry. Sodium is mainly found in the fluids that surround the bodys cells, such as the blood and lymph fluid, with little sodium found inside the bodys cells.

In addition to the sodium naturally swimming in the blood and lymph fluids, we get sodium from our daily diet. Current daily recommended sodium intake is 2,300 mg. However, if you really want to have the greatest impact on your health, aim for no more than 1,500 mg! Excess amounts of sodium will exceed the bodys natural sodium content. Lets say you take in more sodium than stated above. When sodium intake exceeds the amount your body can handle, you get a surplus buildup and the kidneys have to work extra hard to excrete a constant rise in daily sodium intake. The kidneys may not always flush the sodium out. A buildup may cause the body to hold extra fluids in the blood and around the cells, which contributes to increased blood pressure and excess weight gain from water.

Where does this surfeit of sodium come from?

Diet and Salt Society

Our average diet in the Western world and specifically in America habitually includes fast, packaged and convenience foods that are processed and cooked with high levels of salt/sodium. If a diet is mainly composed of high-sodium foods, whether or not you add salt, naturally the sodium intake also rises. The body holds and stores water so extra weight accumulates. Estimates say many people in the UK and USA may be carrying up to five pounds of extra weight because of a high sodium intake.

However, crash dieting may have the opposite effect, which happens when an individual reduces food intake in order to lose weight quickly. A percentage of the weight loss will be water because cutting out high sodium foods cold turkey means a reduction in daily sodium intake. This results in water loss as the kidneys finally have a chance to rid the excess sodium from the body. This also explains, in part, why a dieter may experience the yo-yo effect when dieting. He or she loses water weight by reducing food intake, but quickly regains fluid when old eating habits return and daily sodium intake rises once more.

Patients with certain conditions such as heart failure have to be particularly concerned with water retention.

Physiology Explained

If you have had heart failure, you are familiar with homeostasis, although you may realize your ideal state of health is the maintenance of sodium and total body fluid homeostasis. The serum sodium and urine sodium play important roles in the maintenance of sodium and total body fluid homeostasis, and in the diagnosis of disorders causing homeostatic disruption of salt/sodium and water balance.

In mammals, decreases in blood pressure and decreases in sodium concentration that the body senses within the kidneys result in the production of renin, a hormone that acts indirectly to cause the generation of another hormone called aldosterone. The aldosterone hormone decreases the excretion of sodium in the urine. As a human or other mammal retains more sodium, regulatory systems sense changes in pressure in part from the concentration of sodium and water in the blood. In response, these regulatory systems generate antidiuretic (or water-retaining) hormones. As the hormones cause the body to retain water, they help to restore the bodys total amount of fluid.

A counterbalancing system in the body senses both the volume retained and pressure from the fluid. Receptors in the heart and blood vessels sense this pressure and trigger production of a hormone named in part for sodium that, ironically, causes the body to lose sodium in the urine. Thus, the bodys osmotic balance drops in response to the low concentration of sodium, and this triggers the regulatory system to excrete the excess water. The net effect is to return the bodys total fluid levels back toward normal, and sodium levels toward normal.

Meanwhile, sodium is doing its job aiding brain and nerve function in humans and other animals. However, let us say the bodys regulatory system is disrupted. When this occurs, certain hormone levels increase, which gives rise to water and sodium retention; consequently, needed potassium gets leached out of the body.

Hormones, High Blood Pressure and Sodium

RAAS, or the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, is a complex hormone system in the body that regulates sodium levels, blood pressure and water balance. Multiple organs influence the regulatory system; however, none is more important than the kidneys.

As mentioned previously, when blood volume is low, the kidneys secrete the hormone renin. Renin stimulates the production of angiotensin, which causes blood vessels to constrict, resulting in increased blood pressure. Angiotensin also stimulates the secretion of the hormone aldosterone from the adrenal cortex. Next, aldosterone causes the tubules of the kidneys to increase the reabsorption of sodium and water into the blood. This increases the volume of fluid in the body, which also increases blood pressure.