Raena Morgan: Hi, I’m Raena Morgan with iHealthTube. We’re visiting with Dr. Barbara Hendel, who is the co-author of Water and Salt: The Essence of Life. And we have lots of questions to ask Dr. Hendel about the impact of salt and water in our daily diets. Dr. Hendel, one of the questions that comes up a lot is that doctors are often telling their patients to lower their salt intake. Yet, in your research, you say that we must have salt in our bodies in order to live. Could you elaborate on that a little? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes. Salt is necessary to live, but it depends on what salt you use, if you [use] salt natural salt, or if you use this chemical salt. There is a study launched in Lancet Medical Journal. [It was a 20 year study on 12,000 people divided into two groups]. One group didn’t eat salt at all and the other group did. And the people in the group that didn’t eat salt died earlier. The scientists made this study to prove that if you didn’t eat salt you’ll have a longer life. But [the results were very] different. Raena Morgan: You can’t eliminate salt at all from your diet. Dr. Barbara Hendel: No. You have to eat salt. It depends on the quantity and on the quality. We all eat too much salt. But it’s best to eat a normal quantity of salt and eat this natural salt. Raena Morgan: Natural salt. So what the doctors are saying is that table salt, ordinary table salt, is a burden to the body. And so that’s why they’re asking us to lower our intake of, right? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Right. This normal table salt burdens our body because it is like a toxic substance. Raena Morgan: Oh really? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes. Our body wants to eliminate this toxic substance and we need water to ionize sodium and chloride. [The process uses] valuable cell water [that causes the cell to die afterwards]. This is why it burdens our body. Raena Morgan: Do we swell, do we retain fluid? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes. That, there are, aratemia and well… all bad things you can… you can take… Raena Morgan: A whole string of complications that result from eating ordinary table salt, too much ordinary table salt. Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes, hypertension and [other] these things. Raena Morgan: Hypertension? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes. Raena Morgan: Well, alright, thank you Dr. Hendel for explaining that to us. I’m Raena Morgan. This has been iHealthTube. We’ve been talking with Dr. Barbara Hendel about her book that she co-authored Water and Salt: The Essence of Life. If you would like to know more about Dr. Hendel’s work, you can check it out on iHealthTube, the website. Thank you.