Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Salt

Episode Date: July 1, 2016

If you've ever used salt for ANYTHING other than making cold french fries moderately edible, you need to listen to this episode. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones, Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. Sydney, we're in the drags of TV right now. And things are hard out there. That's true. That's true Justin. You know I wasn't as much of a TV watcher until we got married. Yeah, I know.

And now I know that summer is a rough time for the J-man. Summer is a rough time for us out here. You know, it's ironic, I think the only three shows that we really like that are on right now, Unreal, Bachelor, Et, and are you the one, just like different permutations of the same formula. And there, we just admitted that and put that out there. There, that's all we like right now Yeah, you thought I was smart. Sorry. Listen smart tricks smart people need a break too. All right, and unreal is smartish

It's a little guilty pleasure All of it is kind of a guilty pleasure. Yeah, for sure. That's fair to say you know what I'm it miss I want to watch since we got down time. I was thinking about this. I want to watch the OC. We've already watched the OC. I want to watch the OC. Oh, good. Go back from the beginning. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I feel you, but I don't think we have time for that right now. I do it right now. No. Why? I hate to salt your game, but we kinda got a podcast to do. Salt. Okay, salt my, you're throwing a seal and go at me

as you're telling me that I'm not allowed to watch the O.C. Okay. You can't just say, you're not allowed to watch the O.C. And now I also wanna say salt my game. The never one thing that would make me wanna watch it, O.C. Can I ask, is there anywhere else in the world where salt my game exists other than in the O.C. universe? I mean, is that a thing?

Like I had never heard that before the O.C. I've never heard it outside of the O.C. except for us and our family referencing the O.C. Yes. When you and me and Griffin and Rachel talk about salting each other's games, that's it. That's it. That's pretty much it. I don't know, but I don't want to salt the game if whoever starts saying salt my game. Man, it's a very good phrase though.

Very vocative too. It's very vocative. It's also appropriate. Speaking of salt. Speaking of salt. I thought we should talk about salt. Yeah, I'm a big fan of salt. The cool thing about being married to a doctor a lot of times she'll tell me about things

that aren't healthy for me. And then I was like, everybody seems really up in arms and soul and sitting. He's always just like, go hog wild, J.M. No, well, no, I hold on. I didn't say that. No, but like, I think everybody's always been aware that there's an aspect of salt that has something to do with medicine, that some people eat too much or that you shouldn't eat this or that's always one of the first things people tell me like, well, I don't salt my food. But there's also this new concept of salt I see more frequently where like salt, especially certain kinds of salt, is this healthy, secret cure. It rules a lot of minerals maybe. Yeah. That people that we've been keeping from people. So I thought we could kind of trace

the medical roots of salt. And there are a lot of people who have suggested salt or the salt cousins, the salt family, that the pantheon of salt, Seneca, Robert, Rachel, Lauren, Janine, Jennifer, Brandon, and Erica all suggested this topic. So first of all, the use of salt for medicine dates back to ancient times. Now what salt?

I'm just kidding. Normally we start that way, so we don't need to do that. Salt is sodium chloride. Got it. In a C L. C L. Got it. That's how it's abbreviated, sodium chloride. That's it.

That's salt. Now, there are lots of permutations of that. There are lots of different places you could get salt or like process salt, but that's salt. And now, let me say this, there are also salts of different things. Potassium salts or magnesium salts. That's not usually what we're talking about

when we just use the word salt. You know, somebody says past the salt, they don't mean past me the potassium salt. Usually, they usually just mean like table salt. If you're, if you have a weird uncle, uh, Mr. Wizard, who's over for Thanksgiving, if your uncle is with your wizard, he's over for Thanksgiving, he might do that, but that's about it. Uh, or he might say, like, pass me the knuckle. We'll say that sometimes.

Do you say that sometimes, right? Well, I don't say pass me the knuckle. I've got to be like, let's give him some knuckle. Get a very complex look on your face as if that's very bad. No, this is funny. It's a joke. It's a joke about sodium chloride.

Okay, well, what jokes are later, but first let's talk about salt. In ancient Egyptian medicine, salt was advised for disinfection. There was a thought that salt could kill. Well, I was going to say that salt could kill bacteria, but we didn't know that. Although we do think that eventually, we didn't know anything about bacteria. We just thought that salt cleaned wounds. So it was used for disinfection.

You could use it as an ointment or a suppository or a liquid. There were recipes, so to speak, for all of these things. There's one papyrus that advises using it for a chest wound specifically that you could put a bunch of salt on a chest wound and it would dry it out. Sounds very, very unpleasant. I think if you already have a chest wound, I don't know how much worse it could get. In the ebers papyrus, specifically, they advise that it's a way to again fight infection as well as use desalaxative.

Is it? Alaxative? I mean, if you eat epsom salts, it will work. It's going down. Yeah. I am not telling you to eat epsom salts. There are other ways to make you poop. Less salty ways.

But I mean, there are, there is an aspect to it where you could use it that way. Yeah, so that's not entirely off base. If you wanted to use it as a laxative, one recommendation, one recipe that you could use, was for a suppository that was made of honey vegetable seeds and sea salt. You just shove that on up there.

It sounds like a kashi brand snack. It looks like I find it the isle of the grocery store that's not meant for me. Is there like a recipe? What are those bars where they're just made of like three like Laura bars? Is that what they are? They're just made of like three ingredients?

Yeah, I'm not sure if that's, yeah, I know to start about that. There's another in the eberspapyrus I mentioned for anal infections. Eee. Anal infections, you can make a suppository out of incense, vegetable seeds, fat, oil and ocean salt. I'm assuming the incense is just because location, location, location, location.

If you're getting in there anyway, why not freshen things up a bit? Other uses that I mentioned, callous skin, epidemic diseases. So you know, all of those diseases. Yeah. To stop bleeding. And only meant for your eyes, if you're having any eye ailments,

and you could make a suppository out of salt and inserted into your vagina to make childbirth go faster. Hey, welcome to Earth, baby. Here's some salt. Also, as long as we're talking about things that can be painful and ways to make them worse, how about I'm in labor and then you just stuck assault suppository in my vagina? Yeah. No, thanks. I thought suppository in my vagina. Yeah. Nothing. I thought suppositories, perting my ignorance, but I thought suppositories were just for the butt. Generally, when we use the words,

the repository we mean up the butt, medically speaking up the butt. Medically speaking, we're gonna put this up the butt. But, I mean, you could, I guess it's a repository being something that is inserted, being... But not a pill. I mean, if you're saying a vaginal suppository.

Okay. Got it. All right. Yeah. The measants. But you're right. I would never say suppository and think anyone would assume anything other than up the butt.

Up the duck butt. Yes. Exactly. In Greek medicine, Saul was thought to be a, first of all, a necessary part of the butt. Up the diet butt. Yes, exactly. In Greek medicine, salt was thought to be a, first of all, a necessary part of the diet. So, in, you know, a lot of Greek medicine revolved around eating a healthy diet and exercising and like lifestyle kind of things as part of like your health and well-being, salt was a necessary part of that. So in that sense, it was already medicinal. Like, you have to eat enough salt

because you won't be healthy if you don't. Hippocrates specifically advised it as an expectorant. Yeah. Break up and bring up mucus and stuff. It was also used as an emetic. You remember what that means? Throw up. Yep, make a puke.

I mean, that's, that's one to one. Either that by-boy works it don't. like you would know that pretty quick, right? That's true. I think if you, one recipe was if you mix together salt, water, and vinegar and drink it, you're gonna puke. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So there you go. That's the only thing you can trust all time

if you belong is a medics. That's the one thing where it's like, okay, you guys, you're right about that. Now like, that's not a particularly narrow category. I think there's a lot of stuff where it's like, hey, swallow this. Let's see this for science. Come on. Let's see if you agree. Gregory, let's come over here and swallow this.

Let's see if you hurl. Steve Onius. Drink this. That's a plus two on the blow chunk scale. Yeah, definitely good. Good and medic everybody. We found another great medicine. everybody who found another great medicine. For your spleen, salt could also be helpful. You would want to take one-third seawater, two-thirds cow milk, mix that together,

drink it in the morning on an empty stomach. You got no splinic problems, no spleen-y problems after that. For skin ulcers, a recipe of salt and honey was recommended. If you have frecklesles which I would not consider a medical condition. No, no, no. But if you do and you want to treat them in your in ancient Greece, they may tell you to rub saltwater all over your freckles. It just takes foliate.

You're not gonna get rid of those. You just love to do anything. Right? No. No. No. Why would you want to anyway? Well, they're adorable. They're lovely little splashes in them across your cheeks.

In ancient times, they were called God's pain splatters. God's tiny mistakes. They were called. No, they weren't. No, well, I agree to disagree. No, they weren't. Don't get ready for freckles.

I've always been envious. I could have freckles I would. All right. But I don't think that's something you can envious. I could have freckles. I would. All right. But I don't think that's something you can wish for. I'll keep mine. It's a deal. You could also, there was also recommended that you could vaporize like inhale salt water. Can't you? Yeah.

I hate it. God. God. And hey, guys, what's up? It's GMOD. Got a new one in. This is just salt. Just salt mix with water. Here we go. Blaze it.

Cotton. What? I don't remember that it didn't matter. You're saying the cotton thing again. Yeah, this is a vape. Vapes line. Vapes line. I remember that and I've instantly forgotten why it was a vape line.

It's honestly, I'm not even sure it's vape slang. It's vape slang that Griffin and I use because there's this 12 year old kid that vapes huge Mods on vine Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. I thought I'd understand this. Okay. All right. Cotton The Romans used it for puking as well They especially salty vinegar. It was also helpful against

Calluses so especially if it a rotting callus, if it's a rotting callus, that's a bad, that's a bad scene, man. Get some salt on there. Yeah, if you have a dog bite or any other poisonous animal, which is pour some salt on it, if you're bleeding pour some salt on it, if you need a gargle, you do that, kill some leeches with it.

Sure. If you need to get rid of a scab or a crust, salt. need a gargle, you do that, kill some leeches with it. Sure. If you need to get rid of a scab or a crust salt. I have used it as a gargle. Am I like an old-timey idiot now? No. For like throat thing, if I have like throat blisters. We're kind of gonna get to that. Okay, good.

I don't know. You're disappointed in me. I'm not. More than usual. You are gonna get to that. Okay. Okay. I don't know you're disappointed in me. I'm not I'm not usually what you are not alone in that and do you know how many doctors? Do you know how I don't want to I don't want to blow up any any spots too much? You don't want to Salt anyone's game. I don't want to solve anyone's game It's interesting you see we've talked about a Vesena before It's interesting, you see, we've talked about Avacena before the physician who got a lot more things right than his contemporaries. He wrote about the importance of salt, specifically iodine content of salt for the human body

and for health without understanding exactly why he was completely right. Again, we'll talk a little bit more about salt and iodine. In the middle ages, in addition to the continuing, I mean, that's the thing. We, at some point figured out that salt was good for puke, and that is a theme. Also salt is good for making you poop in certain. Correct. So it continues to be like, and also everybody's got salt

and if you haven't pooped in a while, or if you haven't pukeed in a while, let's just, let's try some salt first, because you got that already. Yeah. You could try powdering and roasting your salt, and that was said to have a pain killing effect. Like you, I mean, I guess,

I'm not sure that would be- Then eat it and it makes your pain go away. I'd be interested to see if that actually changes the, like how much cooking you'd have to do to change the chemical makeup of salts because I don't I don't feel like I've ever seen salt get toasted. Yeah, I have a hard time see thinking that that actually does anything. Yeah, but that's I don't know. I mean, if you're talking about like flake salt, I don't know if it would change the look of it or something,

but when you're talking about like salt granules, you know how like some some of the big clumps of salt is more like a flake of salt. Yeah. I don't know if that would change it more. Some of the big clumps of salt was more like a flake of salt. I don't know if that would change it more. Rock salt was thought to be a good remedy against fever, but in general, while we still thought that salt was a good way to fight off toxins and infections and make you puke and all that stuff, there was already this beginning like emerging thought

that maybe there is so much, so much thing is too much salt. People of this time period and like most ancient time periods and you could argue today seem sometimes suspicious of anything you can indulge in. Anything you can indulge or over indulge in. Exactly. Yes, moderation gets to be a theme and that's why you find there was the School of Salarna which was a medical school that we've we've talked about before one of the first big kind of like centers of ivory towers of academic medicine. And they created this book called the Art of Stain Healthy that they actually gave to the crusaders to read to help them stay healthy.

that they actually gave to the crusaders to read, to help them stay healthy. And in it is the note that two salty food, diminishes semen and eyesight. Salt burns, makes one fretful shabby scabby and wrinkly. Fretful shabby scabby and wrinkly. Well, that's the last thing I want. That's what little boys are made of. I don't know.

How does that go? No one, I'm out there crusading. I want to say on my top peak performance. There you go. So we already have this kind of idea that maybe too much salt is bad for you. We've talked about paracelsis before. Paracelsis bombastis.

Bombastis is what I like to call him. It's a better name. Yeah, because we're close. He talked about how important salt was saying the human being must have salt. He cannot be without salt. He was right. Yeah.

I feel like my cousin Joe wrote that. Why? And I just love salt. Just love salt? He dumped salt all over everything. Sounds like something you'd read in like a cross stitch sampler in the home of someone who like salt just a little bit too much.

Like they have a hang up in their kitchen and it's like like some people have that about coffee. It's like, okay, I'm glad you like salt, but like a cross stitch sampler, really? I had this neighbor who did that, Mr. Morton. Okay. Maybe like that one. Yeah, that's two great jokes already. The knackle thing and now this.

What am I even doing here? For those who don't know Morton's is a kind of sold. Oh man, now you're explaining the jokes. This just keeps getting funnier. I'm so good at this comedy thing now. Yeah, you're killing it right now. It's like I'm ready to care at top. He advised it for constipation, uses a diuretic against ginsenguin and also worms.

There's another book, as long as we're talking about different books, opposed to the art of staying healthy, there was the dirty pharmacy, which was written by Paulinean1734, which I think we've referenced before. It had a lot of super gross treatments for things. I'm pretty sure it's a Maclemore album, too. It's a wee rafraff. The dirty pharmacy. They have one treatment cure recipe. I don't know, dare maybe.

Where you mix fresh, not old fresh black calmanur, beer vinegar and half a knife's tip of salt. That's how you measure that half a knife's tip. And then you put that on your eyes. If you're there red and watery for, well, wait a minute. If your eyes are red and watery. If your eyes are red and watery and you get so bothered by that, how red, how watery. From like, I know what I need fresh cow ducky beer vinegar and knife. I measure a knife of something into my eyes

because these are so red and watery. What? You are desperate. That's tomorrow is picture day. That's what it is, right? I've got to get my employee ID shot tomorrow. I'm not going to be stuck with this picture in five years. Now, is on your way home,

you don't want your parents to know what you've been doing. Yeah. You don't know you've been, you know. All right, well, blazing churns. Smoking a dooby. I'm with you. In the 19th century, that we expand, like the uses of salt you see it used for all kinds of, again, the same kind of things, worms and pooping and whatnot, but also for goiters

and dysentery and dropsy and epilepsy and syphilis. There were all kinds of recipes for ways to put it on rashes and swellings in ophthalmology, like for eye diseases, they had all kinds of concoctions you could put on your cornea. And there was one specific recipe for an animal of salt that was supposed to work for patients who were seemingly dead and apoplectic, which I guess if you start going to fault up there, you might wake up somebody, they're waking upable. Warts were treated with snail juice and salt, and if you have a headache, you can just bathe your feet in salt and ash to make that go. I want to get into some of the specific kinds of salt and what we use salt for.

Good. Me too. Yes. But before I do that, I'm really going to need you to follow me to the building department. Oh, let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God before the mouth. Okay, so Sydney, you were going to tell us about some medicinal uses of salt. That's right. Or medicinal salt, more specifically. Right. So, you may have heard more recently that there are all kinds of special salts that can

help you with all kinds of medical problems. Pink salt, pink Himalaya salt. Exactly. Good for you. So, the idea is that, and you may know this, table salt is processed, right? It's like harvested, there's like the big blocks of salt, and then you grind it down to like the little granules of salt, and then you clean it, and there's anti-caking agents added to it, which keep it from like clumping together in your shaker, and they add the iodine

back into it. So the, and iodine is important, by the way. Why do they add iodine to your salt? Do you know this, Justin? I know. Because it prevents thyroid disease. But why in the salt? So that you get enough in your diet.

A lot of us don't eat enough of the foods that contain iodine. And salt was a great way. When they figured that out, it was a great way just to put the iodine back in the salt that we eat. We eat plenty of salt, so we'll get plenty of iodine, and it prevents thyroid disease. Well, I mean, you need enough to prevent thyroid disease, huh? So that's where that comes from. So that's actually a really helpful thing, because it's just iodine is not in a lot of foods, and we don't eat a lot of the foods that iodine occurs in, so there you go. That's a helpful thing. It's a good thing. The iodine isn't in

there for like some nefarious purpose. It's to keep you from getting sick. As with all things, the idea that some salts are more natural or less processed is assumed to be better. And I think that's- That's popular fallacy, the nature of fallacy. Exactly. I think that's where that comes from.

To be fair, even some of these salts I'm gonna mention, like they are processed, you know, they're processed. If they're coming in a shaker or like a bottle or something other than a giant block that is connected to a cave, it has been processed. It's been ground in some fashion. Uh, just, I don't know if it's, if we say that it was hand ground or stone ground, I don't know if that gives us like this better image of it.

Give me some examples of what you're talking about. So, so let me tell you about a few before we get to the biggie that you've already mentioned. So first of all, Dead Sea Salt is something that you will see available for purchase. The idea of Dead Sea Salt is first of all that it comes from the Dead Sea. Sure. And that sounds very. Very famous, very famous salt. Very spooky, very mysterious. It has, you'll see that it's listed, it has 21 minerals. The idea is that table salt has been so processed that it's just got like the knackle, it's just sodium chloride. And that you get these more natural salts that are like basically almost like,

you know, you get the salt out of the ocean and dry it out and then you get the salt. And so you get these more natural salts that are like basically almost like, you know, you get the salts out of the ocean and dry it out and then you get the salt. And so you've got all these other kind of minerals stuck to it. Yeah. There are 21 and Dead Sea Salt. So that is, you know, that number is supposed to make you think, well, now I'm in business. I have 21 minerals. Yeah, I'm getting minerals like crafe.

It's very popular for skin conditions. They'll tell you that you need to use it for stress, for any kind of like rheumatoid arthritis or other painful conditions for your joints that soak in in tubs of Dead Sea Salt is going to make that go away. It's also said that it will slow the aging process. I'm not very, very suspicious of anything that glames that. You may not have heard of using Dead Sea salt in these ways, but you've probably heard of Epsom salts. Sure, yeah.

Epsom salts, named for a spring in Epsom Surrey in England, and originally it was, again, taking the water from the spring and actually drying it out until you just have the condensed salt, you know. Again, the idea there are more minerals in it, and it is, in fact, like more of a magnesium salt, you know, then more of a magnesium salt, okay, you know, then it's magnesium salt as opposed to the table salt. It is touted to reduce the risk of strokes

and heart attacks and diabetes and hypertension as well as detoxify your body. And then you'll also hear people just told to like, soak in it for pain, right? Yeah. Soak in an epitome salt's bath. Yeah, that's a thing. Unfortunately, unfortunately, other than the fact that, as I mentioned before, if you

eat it, it will make you poop. There's not really any evidence that I can find for this. If studies are being done, they're not being published in peer-reviewed journals. Nothing. Let me say that. So again, and that does not mean that somebody somewhere didn't do like a study amongst their friends and neighbors and publish it in there like, you know, hand printed newspaper that they make out of their garage.

I don't know. What I'm saying is that in peer-reviewed journals, nice studies about the, you know, efficacy of Epsin salts, nope. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. That doesn't stop though. It's not just you, Justin. Doctors tell people to do this frequently.

And let me say this, I don't think soaking in an epsin salt bath will hurt you in any way. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But the idea that like your body is going to osmosse all of these minerals, it doesn't make a lot of sense. It's done a whole lot of it. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense, or at least not enough to affect your body in the ways that they're saying it's going to.

But if it feels nice, go for it. There's Aztec Artisanal Sea Salt. Whoa, that sounds really good. It's very healthy. It's so fancy. It's harvested over this very specific 45 day period and it's very flavorful. It has 80 minerals, much higher moisture content. And it is touted to improve athletic performance.

Great, great. They should make catering with that. There is dendritic sea salt, which the main way you see this used is with essential oils. So as long as you're, you know, going all in, yeah, and for a penny and for a pound, I guess. Yeah, get some dendritic sea salt. But what everybody wants to know about is Himalayan pink sea salt. Right. Because Himalayan pink sea salt is, I think, the newest coolest of the salts. It is very strong. I will say that first of all, it's very hard to use in cooking because I have no idea how much it is. It is, it is a stronger flavor and that is one of the things

that I will say I will give them is you need less, you know, so you're getting less sodium per serving of Himalayan sea salt or any of the flaked or rock salts than you are with table salt, you know what I'm saying? So if you're trying to watch your sodium intake, you can use less, get flavor, same idea. Beyond that, though, it gets a little rocky.

So, Himalayan pink sea salt is said to have all 84 minerals that your body needs. So it tops out the mineral chart. That's so many minerals. That's so funny. I'm only so excited about it. It is mine specifically from the K-Roo salt mine in Pakistan. There is actually an asthma clinic in the salt mine.

And let me tell you this, all of this other stuff aside, please look at some pictures of this salt mine. It is beautiful, it is amazing. And now I wanna go there and visit it. Not because I think I'm gonna be healthier, but just because it's really beautiful. Now on a side note, there was some very concerning things

that I read about the condition for miners in these Himalayan salt mines. That does not surprise me. They're in these Pakistan salt mines where they get the Himalayan pink sea salt. So I would think about that before you get all excited about your fancy salt. But it is touted for skin, sleep, weight loss.

That's why so many people are into it, asthma, concentration. It's pink, by the way, because of iron oxide. It gives us its color. That's why it's pink, in case you were asked. Again, the idea is that it's more... Yeah, it's that idea. The idea is that it's more natural. You will read all kinds of benefits from it. That it increases your hydration. That it creates an electrolyte balance and regulates the inside and outside of your cells and balances your pH and it's good for acid reflux and your bones and your blood pressure. And it prevents goiters and improves circulation and helps the intestines and detoxifies and on and on and on.

You will read countless claims. All true. And they say, Sobbing's twist. Himalayanseas salt does all of it. In addition to that, also it will increase your sex drive, reduce the signs of aging and detoxify your body from heavy metals. So the thing is, a lot of these sites that I read about Himalayan pink sea salt say that

there are double blind studies to support this. Again, if they are in peer-reviewed journals, I cannot find them. So I do not know where these studies exist. I do not think there's any support for these claims as far as I can tell. If there are, again, I am saying if there are studies, they're not in peer-reviewed journals. There are also those Himalayan pink sea salt lamps. You've probably seen those like a big block of salt and then there's a light inside it. Those have a ton of health claims as well.

The idea is that they release these like negative ions into the room and they're going to give you more energy and improve your attitude and help you with all kinds of chronic health conditions and pain or whatever. So if you didn't want to like eat salt or bathe in the salt, you could just put a salt lamp in your room and get all the benefits. I think it's a pretty good rule that if something says, once you read the word detoxify,

like something detoxes your detoxifies your body, like that's probably the time to walk away. Exactly. I mean, you gotta live her. It's doing fine. Our bodies are really good at detoxifying us, otherwise we'd all be dead. I would say the practical upshed is this,

salt is salt. There are other minerals in those salts, like they've done gas spectrometry to look like how much, you know, what minerals are in there and how much. They're in there, but they're in such trace amounts that they're not gonna do anything. And that's probably a good thing

because there are things like uranium and polonium and phallium, like radioactive things and things that are known poisons that are in there. Like if you analyze all the minerals that are in Himalayan pink sea salt, there are some bad ones that you don't want in your body. It makes you feel so cool and tough now. But the thing is, that's okay,

and this is not me saying, so don't use it. No, because they're so little of it, it doesn't matter. So none of those minerals are really gonna affect you one way or another, and you get plenty of the trace minerals you need. They're called the trace minerals for a reason. You need traces, we get plenty. You don't need to eat Himalayan pink sea salt to get them.

If you like the flavor, go for it. But if you're doing it for health benefits, salt is salt is salt. You need, just for your info, a lot of people want to know, like how much salt do you need, is there such things too much salt there is? There have been a lot of big, giant studies

to try to figure out the exact amount of salt we need. Over five grams a day is not a good idea. We think in general, under three grams a day, we also have concerns about negative effects from that. So probably somewhere between three and five grams a day for most people is the right target amount. Now, that being said, if you have certain health conditions, cardiovascular diseases and congestive heart failure,

cirrhosis or hypertension, your doctor may limit you much more than that. So if you do have health conditions, you really need to talk to your doctor about that. Again, you need iodine for thyroid, and there are lots of other places where we use salt and medicine. You know, we use sodium chloride and ibifluids, we use it to irrigate like our noses and our eyes.

You know, with saline, I don't know that you need to use it to gargle. I don't know that you need to use it to gargle. I don't know that you need to use it. Any of those other, I think that those are kind of like folk wisdom things. And again, if your throat feels better after you gargle with salt water, then you gargle with salt water because that's not going to hurt you. But you can use table salt. That's fine.

Okay. But not pink and melansie salt. If it really, if you really love that flavor and it's worth it to you to pay that can use table salt, that's fine. Okay, but not pink Himalayan tea salt. If it really, if you really love that flavor and it's worth it to you to pay that much for it, I think that's fine, but again, if you're doing it for the health benefits, then you're no better off than any other salt, except for Epsom Salt, which of course will make you poop if you eat it, so be careful. It's really just, just handle with care. Okay. The folks that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for listening to our program again.

If you're not aware, we have a PO box here. PO box 54, honey, 21st Virginia, 25706. If you want to send us some stuff, just want to say a few quick thank yous. Thanks for the book to Julian and Alex. Thanks for the medical leaflets very cool from E.D. Elizabeth gave us Ebola. Oops, no, just this stuff one. Now a cute stuffed Ebola. Yeah, we met Elizabeth in Cincinnati. The Night Vale show is really fun. She was nice. Abby sent us a beautiful calligraphy for Charlie. Thank you. Ergis and us candles themed around a bunch of different macaroids shows that are, they smell amazing. The top one's one is honey. Of course,

which is perfect. The still buffering one smells like leather and it is. It's choice. Yeah. It's choice. Matt sent us some delicious chocolates and Jess sent us a bunch of Australian treats. So thank you so much to everybody for for sending that stuff along again. If you want to send to something PO box 54, 100, which would, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50 I'm at Justin McElroy and she's at Sydney McElroy, S-Y-D-N-E-E. We're all the maximum fun network and there's a ton of other

great shows that you can go enjoy. And in fact, I'll dare say it should enjoy. I'd like to recommend one Schmanners is a show my brother Travis hosts with his wife Teresa, who's sort of an etiquette expert. And they tell you how to like navigate a bunch of different life situations. They have episodes on funerals, on theater, on weddings. It's great. And you can find that on iTunes or at maximumfund.org. We can find all of our different programs. If you like our show, I think you'd really like that show.

It's a nice kind of fit. Yeah. Yeah, it's very complimentary. And Thesita taxpayers taxpayers for letting us use their own medicines as the intro and outro of our program. And I think, is that it? And if you really like our show and you feel compelled to review us on iTunes, we always appreciate that too.

That would be fantastic. Thank you so much for doing that in advance. And thank you so much, of course, for listening. But until next week, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Cindy McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone,

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