What Happens When Sodium Products are Ingested?


What Happens When Sodium Products are Ingested?…


THE, manufacturer of ham, bacon and other salted meats -of butter, cheese, bread, cakes, and numerous other salted foods, hands these to the cook and then they are placed before the consumer. What happens?.

We will instance what happens in the case of bicarbonate of soda which enters into the manufacture of countless tons of indigestion and anti-acid powders as well as being added to cakes and vegetables in cooking. Every person who has used carbonate of soda knows that it rapidly gives off gas or carbon dioxide- that is, it undergoes hydrolysis when mixed with water-the carbon dioxide is removed-what remains? Sodium hydrate-caustic soda. In the stomach this combines with the hydrochloric acid to form sodium chloride-salt solution. Where does the hydrochloric acid come from?-from the stomach secretion. But these cells cannot manufacture chlorine. They must obtain it from the blood and the food. This chlorine in the blood and tissue-fluids is one of the essential acid buffer protectives. While its supply is efficient to maintain the hydrochloric acid production necessary for gastric digestion and to neutralize the caustic hydrate end-product of the hydrolysis of ingested sodium bicarbonate, the only result is depletion of the body of its free chlorine acid-protective. The continuance of the sodium intake must eventually deprive the body of its free chlorine-more especially as its supply to the body is removed when cooked food is taken. But not only does the caustic end-product of the hydrolysis of sodium- products deplete the body of its free chlorine but also of its free acid phosphorus radical. Sodium phosphate appears in the urinary excretion of numerous people in modern civilization. The test is simple but its implications are seldom recognized. The body is being drained of its free acid-radical of phosphorus by the protective combination of this buffer salt with the caustic hydrate end-product of the hydrolysis of ingested chemical sodium salts with which civilized man impregnates or preserves his food. Free chlorine and phosphorus become deficient -but the sodium habit continues-phosphates disappear from the urinary secretion-they are replaced by carbonates. The body has reached its last chemical defence-the caustic hydrate now combines with the free carbon dioxide of the tissue fluids, and as the process continues-through a continuance of the soda habit- through every piece of ham, bacon, butter, etc., taken- the tissue fluids become more and more carbonated. Sodium carbonate displaces sodium phosphate because there is no longer any free phosphorus to form the phosphate.

But in considering the “Sodium habit” of civilized mankind-a habit, which like cancer, dates back into man’s history, there are other important considerations. The disproportionate ingestion and absorption of sodium products, in their various combinations before and after intake, completely upset the chemical balance of the blood and tissue fluids. Sodium displaces calcium and calcium is necessary for cardiac and intestinal function. Any interference with blood calcium at once interferes with cardiac systoly, and upon force or systoly depends urinary excretion. Displacement by sodium of blood calcium rapidly renders intestinal and renal excretion deficient. The sodium habit of mankind is the primal cause of the universal complaint of constipation, but the cardiac and other constitutional syndromes of symptoms usually ascribed to the constipation, because its presence is easily recognized, are not due to this effect of the sodium cause, but are only the outcome of interference with the functions, of other organs brought about by the same cause which has brought about the constipation.

Cardiac failure is the commonest cause of mortality in civilization today; it alone stands ahead of cancer.

Cardiac function requires calcium for its normal maintenance, and yet by his sodium habit civilized mankind, in :spite of proven physiological facts known to medical :science for many decades, continues to produce cardiac failure by resolutely removing calcium from his blood.

It is a common sight in even modem hospitals to see patients suffering from failing cardiac function being drugged with powerful heart stimulants and being fed on sodium preserved and impregnated foods.

Lastly, after pointing out what I have called the deadly “sodium habit” of mankind-a habit, the ramifications of which in our diet needs no stressing, I have arrived at the inevitable conclusion or effect on the blood chemistry-ever increasing sodium carbonate saturation as the sodium habit is continued. Nature has, exhausted her chemical protections-there only remains mechanical protection by localized deposition of the blood carbonates. Deposited in cysts-from which there is no escape for the carbon dioxide gas, their contents remain carbonates. Ovarian cysts are tragic in their frequency in civilized womenfolk, but not more tragic than the futility of their surgical removal-another instance of removing effects without any regard for causes. Hydroceles are tapped and fill up again because the reservoir or safety trap for the blood remains. But thousands are removed and their mechanical protection is scientifically cut away and the blood stream deprived now of its mechanical protective reservoir becomes increasingly unbalanced with inevitable results to systemic functions.

Continuous sodium carbonate deposition into muscle tissue such as that of the uterus results in concentric fibrosis or fibroid formation.

Here, again, routine surgery, in complete disregard of causes, removes effects- but more important still removes the site into which, by deposition, the body is endeavouring to pour the sodium carbonate, whose blood increase must end in fatality. From place to place in the body I nature attempts to deposit its blood carbonates and from place to place she is chased by the surgeon who scientifically removes the mechanical protective deposition-site into which the blood is endeavouring to pour its ever increasing carbonates to stave off constitutional disaster. Every surgeon of experience has in countless cases seen this surgeon’s chase from one deposition-site in the body to another.

If cardiac failure, due to calcium deficiency brought about by sodium excess in the blood, does not end the picture too soon, blood carbonate excess must sooner or later end in carbonate deposition in a tissue such as the mucosa of the gastrointestinal tract, the cervix uteri, the prostate and mammary gland, etc., in which hydrolysis of the deposited carbonates with escape of the carbon dioxide can occur. Then the tragedy rushes to its climax. Continuous caustic sodium hydrate action, produced by continuous hydrolysis of deposited sodium carbonate, without the protection of the “id buffer salts of free phosphorus and chlorine, results in ulceration and cancer cell evolution and proliferation. Cancer is a continuous cellular proliferation, at a local site, of cells which have been evolved under the constant action of caustic soda produced by the hydrolysis of sodium carbonate from the blood stream and tissue fluids in cellular tissues in which lymph or venous stasis has occurred. Sodium carbonate excess in the blood can only occur when there is deficiency of the acid protective or buffer radicals of phosphorus and chlorine brought about by their deficient ingestion and excessive removal from the body, through the “Sodium habit” of mankind.

Edward Henty Smalpage
Edward Henty Smalpage (1895-1962), was an Australian doctor. He netered medical school at Sydney at age 16. He went into Military service after that. After leaving services on medical grounds (epilepsy), he cleared FRCS from England in 1921. In 1940 he published the book Cancer, it's Cause, Prevention and Cure.