Things to consider when on medication

Things to consider when on medication*-

• Cross reaction - A medicine's life cycle consist of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion. From the time it is absorbed and into the blood stream cross reactions can happen due to presence of certain molecules or chemicals. It is very important to know which food to avoid when on certain medication for your safety. For example, some antibiotics can react with alcohol in blood and can have serious side effects.

• Course - If you are on antibiotics it is always advised to finish the course unless otherwise advised. This is to avoid the emergence of antibiotic resistance varieties.

• Dosage - Exceeding recommended dosage limit can have serious consequences and can also turn fatal. Choose dosage as per need, don't just pop a pill. Excess drug in circulation can have unwanted side effects on non-target organs.

• Other medications - Always cross check and confirm with your doctor or pharmacist if on any other additional medication. The drugs can react with each other. If you are on too much of medication cleared through liver, it can put burden on liver. In such case if in need of medication your pharmacist might suggest medication cleared through Kidney to avoid extra burden on liver for excretion.

• Notice - Notice any change in body like itching, redness, breathing difficulties etc. We are all genetically different, although drugs are said to be tested before being available in market, it can't be tested on individual basis. So, keep a check on any noticeable change in your body and report it to doctor for advice.

• Water - Drink plenty of water so that excess drug is excreted through urination.

• Food - Go for simple home cooked food to avoid feeling bloated.

*Always follow your doctors advise before making any decision

  

Obesity ~ Causes and why the stigma?

Obesity ~ Causes and why the stigma?

Image courtesy: pixabay.com

There is a stigma attached to obesity which causes psychiatric disorder. Not that I support obesity but I am against the stigma attached to it. Ignorance of certain section of people in the so called well-read and well-fed society is highly disappointing. It is not just kids who face bullying, teenagers and adults too experience discrimination and judgements of such people. It is often thought that obesity is due to excessive eating and it is an attribute of a lazy person. What many of us fail to see is the other aspect of obesity and its causes.

In today’s article, I will try to list few things I came to know during my previous role as a researcher and as an avid reader of random scientific data. Why this article? Because knowledge is a true power. Next time you see an ignorant making fun of someone’s weight, educate the person.

Of course, eating in moderation and active lifestyle is important for good health but sometimes there are factors far beyond the control of an individual.

1. Ghrelin and Leptin

Ghrelin, secreted by stomach increases the appetite and so aptly known as hunger hormone. It is the one that causes hunger pangs, that stomach rumblings reminding you to eat. Leptin has the exact opposite effect. It signals brain to suppress appetite. The Ghrelin-Leptin tuning is finely balanced, just like many other processes in human body. 

Normally, when a person eats too much, fat cells are formed to store excess energy and these fat cells in turn secrete Leptin to signal brain to make the person stop eating by suppressing appetite. This is important to prevent further damage which can happen due to excess fat. Damage is not just restricted to the physical appearance of the person but the internal machinery. However, too much of Leptin can cause resistance towards it. So the brain can no longer get the signal to stop eating. Also, in some people the hormone Ghrelin is produced in excess or uncontrolled, due to which they can not curb their appetite and are always hungry. So, eating too much may not just be binge eating but an underlying hormonal issue, on which the person has no control over.

2. Hypothyroidism

People with hypoactive thyroid have low metabolism. Metabolism means ability to convert what you eat and drink into energy. Low metabolism means slow conversion and thus accumulation of excess as fat and less breakdown.

3. Genetic disorders  

Several genetic disorders like Cushing’s syndrome can cause excess of stress hormone called cortisol. Excess of cortisol signals body for fat storage and kidney for salt and water retention in body. This causes overall weight gain.

4. Stress

In today’s world the causes of stress are numerous from hectic lifestyle, fierce competition to insecurities, fear and emotional stress. Stress is an outcome of erratic lifestyle and weaker inner strength to combat it. This leads to overproduction of cortisol and if there is little or no physical activity, the elevated level of cortisol leads to weight gain.

  5. Famine theory

There is supposedly an evolution based explanation for obesity. According to this theory, people whose ancestor had a history of poverty or faced frequent famine developed genes for slow metabolism. The explanation for this is that as the food was scare, the body developed a mechanism to slowly metabolise the consumed food to save energy and prevent frequent hunger pangs. The exact opposite happens in case of people with rich ancestral background or those who never had to go through food scarcity period. Since they always had plenty of food and consumed heavily, over a period of time their body developed a mechanism to easily burn calories by increasing metabolism to prevent fat formation. Now, this means that different people today carry different metabolism genes based on their ancestral genes. In general, people with rich past ancestral background are thin even if they eat a lot as they have high metabolism genes which quickly burn fat. In case the environment of people with slow metabolism genes changes like now they have plenty of food to consume, then owing to their background (as per this theory), they can’t burn it and tend to put on weight. People evolved in certain way based on there environmental conditions usually pertaining to food. In simple words, body tends to store fat when it in in some kind of stressful situation, it sense that some bad days are coming and there can be food shortage so begin storage. In ancient world the stress was only about food shortage. So over a period of time, human body evolved this way, associating stress with food storage.

6. Virus based Obesity

Yes, certain viruses like Adenovirus 36 (Adv36) are linked to obesity. In series of studies conducted by an Indian doctor, Doctor Nikhil Dhuhrandhar, it was implied that viruses have ability to make you fat by adipose tissue(fat cells) formation. He came across this while having a conversation with his veterinary friend who described how poultry industry is been affected by virus making chicken fat. This was bit weird as typically virus infection leads to weight loss not gain. Later, he begin studying association between virus and obesity, which was never thought before. 

He did series of experiment with chicken and infected them with virus to see the effect. Surprisingly, the infected chicken showed increase in body mass but there was no increase in cholesterol and triglycerides, which usually is high in obese people. He did further experiments to check if the virus is contagious by keeping uninfected chicken with infected ones. To his shock this obesity causing virus turned out to be contagious, giving an evidence that obesity can be contagious.

To establish this link in human, he tested the blood samples of his patients for antibodies against virus (SMAM-1). SMAM-1 is adenovirus of chicken. It was thought that this virus is specific to chicken and doesn’t infect humans. As this infection doesn’t cause a life threatening ill effects wherein a person rush to hospital and doctors screen the blood for deadly pathogens, it was never studied much. The virus simply causes obesity, and we usually associate obesity with sedentary lifestyle and binge eating. The blood samples of patients tested positive for SMAM-1 virus antibodies and those tested positive had high body mass index and low cholesterol and triglycerides. Dr Dhurandhar continued his studies with Adv 36, which is human adenovirus, just as chicken is for SMAM-1. This time Chicken, Mice, Marmosets was infected with Adv 36 and it all showed similar results as that of SMAM-1. Finally, he did studies on twins as twins usually have same genetic makeup. He found that among the twins, the twin with high body fat tested positive for adenovirus.

This concluded that the virus can cause obesity by increasing fat cells synthesis.

7. 
   Medicines*

       *Kindly note: Certain medicines are important. Please do not stop taking your pills without your doctor’s advise. It can be life threatening.

There are certain medicines that interfere with complex metabolic pathways leading to obesity. The problem with allopathy is that it treats one illness and causes many other as side effect. Clinical trial are mostly performed for this, however it is not possible to foresee because every individual is genetically different and thus may react differently to a drug. Also, science has yet not discovered and understood all metabolic pathways. I remember once my friend told me that she had an issue of frequent urination and she visited a doctor. The doctor prescribed some medicine and the condition was taken care of. But, she started gaining weight due to the side effect of the medicine. If you know about the process of how body expel water as urine, you might be aware that it is a complex process involving many hormones and salt concentration in intracellular and extracellular fluid. If the salt concentration is high, one feels thirsty so that there is water in the body to expel excess salt through frequent urination. To treat an illness, the first step is to understand the cause. In such a complex process, there can be something out of place. However, blindly suggesting patient to pop a tablet and stop frequent urination is not the solution. Due to the effect of medicine, the water was now retained in the body leading to weight gain. I don’t blame doctor too. They are taught to treat this way and it is usually symptom based treatment. Pain? take this, fever? pop this. Also, the birth control pills mess around with hormones and causes weight gain. 

These are the culprits known to us, there might be many more unknown factors causing obesity. So, before making fun of other persons weight or appearance, show that you are educated and know little bit about obesity. Obesity is not just about over-eating. It is important to show empathy.  After all, kindness is the best balm that comforts the weary soul. Health is about fine mind and body, not just physical appearance. Remember, only a sick soul hurt someone else’s soul. What is the point of harassing someone over something one has no control over?

~Ren

Chocolates - divine or deceptive?

Chocolates - Divine or Deceptive?

In today’s world, it is ironic to see that people are more aware and into fitness for ultimate physical body and health yet they are easily fooled into believing goodness of certain foods. But, why is it that? Who benefits? The big chocolate companies have enough money to fund researches and pay people to make us believe in the positive benefits of it. Also, marketing strategies often twist research to claim healthiness of their product.

I am a brown girl who likes everything chocolaty brown :P . Chocolates are my weakness and I know they taste divine. No doubt about it. But, what I find annoying is misleading dubious claims of chocolates being healthy or dark chocolates, to be more precise. I agree that cocoa is high in antioxidants but it is an expensive ingredient to make a chocolate. A lot of chocolates we eat is low grade cocoa, roasted to enhance its chocolate flavour. To make a bar of it, the entire chocolate making process requires emulsifiers, flavours (artificial or natural), soy lecithin and other stuff to be added.

While pure cocoa is bitter, pure cocoa nibs are nothing like a chocolate (more like almonds). Too much of a disappointment for all that chocolate craze, specially if you make yourself believe in chocolates health benefits. The statement ‘chocolates are healthy’ is quite misleading and the statement ‘dark chocolate is healthy’ is somewhat misleading as it depends upon the readers ability to read and understand ingredient label on the product. Sadly, many people fail to understand that dark chocolate is isn’t that dark and beneficial. Cocoa (not dutch processed) and cocoa nibs are healthy and has all that beneficial properties that scientific research talks about. What we get in market is sugar, emulsifier, butter mass mixed with low grade processed cocoa, which has loss its beneficial Flavonols. The story is that originally Aztec people used to make cocoa drink.It  somehow reached a Dutch chemist, who then came up with a process of alkali treatment with sodium or potassium carbonate to aid emulsification of fat with water for large scale cheaper production of chocolates. This also darkens the colour of chocolate. Alkali treatment reduces acidity of cocoa from ~ 5.39 to 7 (depending upon the level to which it was alkalised). This can significantly reduce the level of antioxidants from 20-40mg/g to 1-6mg/g. Flavonols catechin and epicathechin level in dutch processed cocoa is way to low to give benefits.

The cocoa in most of the chocolate bars is so less that to get the required amount of flavonoids, you need to consume more, and if you do so, you are ending up with high sugar, fat, emulsifiers intake. Which in turn has its own side effects. But if you remove cocoa fat out and consume chocolates the flavonoids are not absorbed properly. Infant, natural cocoa butter helps in absorption of flavonoids. Moreover, if the cocoa is dutch processed, it will provide no or very little polyphenols. Marketing people can even sell poison stating the good side to it. That you will reach heaven. So, it is our responsibility to weigh advertisements and claims before blindly following the mass. 

In all the scientific studies favouring cocoa befits, tests were conducted with pure cocoa not chocolate bars. So, eat pure cocoa. But, you see advertisements of chocolates not cocoa. So, think! In an article published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it was concluded that older women who consumes chocolates had less bone density and strength probably because with chocolates they were consuming lot of other ingredients. Most chocolates have high fructose corn syrup, which deserves another post to state its harmful effects. Some prefer drinking dark chocolate shake, but a research report suggests that milk reduces the absorption of beneficial compounds. In a study by Dr Mauro Serafini at National Institute for Food and Nutrition, Italy, it was concluded that antioxidants absorption decreases when you have milk to your dark chocolates.(Chocolate milk). Milk proteins binds with antioxidant molecules thereby limiting their absorption in gut. Reports also suggest that cocoa butter which is in higher concentration in dark chocolates assist absorption. Are you thinking about milk chocolates? Well, milk chocolates don’t have cocoa so no point of pondering over absorption of antioxidants. Milk chocolates have milk and butter from cocoa that we all call cocoa butter.

To sum it all, to get most out of your dark chocolate cocoa butter is must and so is no sugar and milk (or significantly less). But, with your dose of antioxidant you also end up getting fat. So, if you think dark chocolate assist weigh loss think again. Because my love for cocoa is pure lust and I don’t believe in superfood. So, if you are trying to check this out make sure you limit your fat uptake from other sources, To get the goodness of cocoa without getting the fatness form cocoa.

Let us see an example of a chocolate I recently bought which is 100% cocoa from Ecuador, called Cacao Sampaka. It has only two ingredients cocoa mass and cocoa butter. This one has  

Per (25g or 3 pieces)

Calories -142 (of which 139 is calories from fat)

Total fat       -  15g (24% of daily requirement)

  Saturated  -  10g (49% of my daily requirement)

Sugar          -  1g (not added but somehow it is there)

Protein        -  3g

Fiber           -2g

Saturated fats are considered bad fat as they can clog arteries, and increase risk of heart diseases. For a 2000 calories diet, the saturated fat limit is 16g or 140 calories from saturated fat. Now check the label and see that how easily in just 3 pieces, you can reach close to the limit. This is because apart from 1- 3 pieces of chocolates , you are also going to have breakfast, lunch and dinner which might add the saturated fat.(through meat, poultry, dairy, eggs and vegetable oil). I just gave an example of a good grade cocoa dark chocolate I have. If you buy Lindt, Hershey’s, Nestle or other brands the ingredient list might have sugar, emulsifiers, soy lecithin etc. Chocolate drink without sugar and milk and 100% cocoa gives energy without giving what coffee and other caffeinated drink gives - A spike in energy level and then dull moment. When you eat chocolates with sugar, you might go through hypo glycemia, a feeling of hungry and tiredness. So you can end up eating more.

Look how the articles have rocketed around the world in papers, magazines etc. Headings like don’t feel the guilt next time you crave chocolate, chocolates are stress buster, Chocolates good for heart, chocolate for weight loss etc seems misleading.

This is the reason I don’t believe in all that health and diet related superfood sagas. Life is about balance. Just like when you laugh too much, you are insane and when you cry too much you are insane. Too much of anything good is bad and bad is off course bad. Cocoa is great for health just like blueberries, strawberry, guava etc. If you happen to find good grade pure cocoa, surpass the bitterness and happen to like cocoa drink then yes, it is beneficial. But, know that cocoa beans have 50% more fat than coffee beans. And be aware that your fat consumption is also going up. For appropriate daily calorie intake of fat, reduce fat from other sources to combat the rise. 

In conclusion, sweets are meant to be eaten occasionally in moderation. Greed is harmful :) I tried to present my points with reasonings. I believe weight is to be managed by healthy diet and lifestyle changes. Dark chocolates with 95% - 100% cocoa are best way to curb your chocolates/cocoa love and to get the benefits of flavanols. But, ultimately moderation is the key.

This reminds me of a funny joke related to green tea and weight loss. Yea, so go to South America get real cocoa and try!

~Ren

Veggie balls recipe/ IKEA veggie balls

Veggie balls recipe/ IKEA veggie balls

On our recent visit to Ikea, I stumbled across veggie balls on the menu and to me it sounded more like an indian stuff. After all, we make halo tikki and other similar ticks like cutlet which look so close to veggie balls. Also, lentil soup is our very own staple daal😂. Not to my surprise when I tasted the veggie balls, it tasted like European version of indian cutlet with kale instead of spinach and herbs instead of our very own masalas. Anyway, I must say this is one of the best possible way to eat kale. 

I tried to replicate the recipe and chose to bake instead of frying. Well, the result was pretty similar.

Ingredients

1. 1 Cup Kale (blanched)
2. 1/3 Cup frozen Peas
3. 1/4 Cup frozen carrot
4. 1/4 Cup cut Onion
5. 1/4 Cup frozen Corn
6. 1 Cup garbanzo beans canned or boiled
7. 1/2 Cup boiled rice/oats 
8. 1 teaspoon basil, oregano, salt, black pepper and garlic powder
9. Bell peppers (optional)
10. Olive oil 1 tablespoon

Preheat oven at 350℉ 

1. Mix all ingredients in a blender and make a coarse mixture. Do not make a paste or add water.
2. Make balls and place it on the baking tray lined with aluminium foil.
3. Spray olive oil on balls.
4. Bake at 350℉ for ~ 30 minutes.

~Ren

Broccoli soup recipe

Servings size (~3 person)

Ingredients:

1. 1 Cup Broccoli florets
2. 3-4 Enoki Mushroom
3. 1 Shallot cut in large pieces
4. 4-5 Garlic cloves (unpeeled and smashed )
5. Basil (1 teaspoon)
6. Parsley (1 teaspoon)
7. 2 teaspoon of black pepper
8. Croutons (optional)
9. Salt as per taste
10. Butter (1/2-1 inch)
11. Avocado oil 2 tablespoon
12. 2 Tablespoon Sour cream
13. 1-2 Cup water

Preheat Oven at 400℉

1. Place an aluminium foil on a baking tray and put broccoli, shallots, mushroom, garlic, parsley, basil, salt. 
2. Spray avocado oil and bake at 400℉ for ~20 minutes.
3. Once baked, put all ingredients in the blender and make a puree. Water can be added as per requirement,
4. Melt butter in a pan and add the puree. 
5. Add sour cream and cook till the puree boils.

Serve it hot with croutons!

~Ren

Salad Green with Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing Recipe

I was not at all a salad person, but ever since I tasted salads during our stay at hanging gardens of Bali (because most stuff on menu was non-vegetarian), I kind-of fell in love with it. Kind of because it can't replace my meal, I always have it along with my traditional indian food, to suffice my taste buds. For me this can be an additional dish along with other indian dishes. 

So, here is my Salad Green with Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing Recipe. This dish is quite healthy and high on nutritional value.

Salad Green with Balsamic Vinaigrette recipe ( Serving size: per person/one plate)

 Salad Green with Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing Recipe

Recipe for Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing:

1. 2 Tablespoon of Olive oil
2. 2 Tablespoon of Balsamic vinegar
3. 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
4. Black pepper (according to taste)
5. Salt (as per your taste)
6. Parsley leaves (I use a pinch of dry parsley leaves)
7. Basil (little to add flavour, I use dry basil)
8. Brown sugar (pinch of - optional I prefer to use it without it, but this takes the taste of the salad to another level)
9. Dijon Mustard (optional)

Add the above ingredients in a bowl and give it a nice whisk to mix. Let it sit for at least 10-15 minutes.

To prepare Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad Green:

1. Take 1 and 1/2 cup of washed salad green or spring mix (Baby spinach, arugula, red romaine lettuce, green romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, red chad, green chad etc). You can add finely chopped onion to the salad (most of the time I avoid it because I don't like the taste)

2. Add prepared vinaigrette dressing and give it a good toss.

3. Add goat cheese or ricotta cheese to the salad.

4. Top it with dry cranberries, pecan or walnut (for healthy crunch 😋 ) and pumpkin seeds This salad also goes well with avocados, cherry tomatoes and strawberry.

~ Ren

Food rich in potassium

Five food rich in potassium

1. Avocados, 1Cup - 1116 mg
2. Spinach, 1Cup (cooked) - 839 mg
3. Banana, orange, pear, mango (Quantity - 1) - ~270 mg
4. White beans, 1Cup - 1000 mg
5. Fruits like strawberry, watermelon, apple juice, ricotta cheese, vanilla ice cream((half cup)) etc -  ~150 mg

Reads - 

Low sodium salts - Useful or harmful?

Natural ways to reduce (Na) salt uptake

~ Ren

Low sodium Salt - a solution for high blood pressure or another risk?

pixabay.com

Food industry has seen numerous debates on low fat, zero calorie, artificial sweeteners, low sodium salts etc. The Low Sodium Salt diet recommendation is nothing new. But, with growing awareness due emergence of various scientific research supporting it , low sodium salts are increasingly finding its numbers rising in groceries self. So let us examine if it has ability to make significant contribution to our health.

I believe (important to insist that it is my belief) before blindly following diet trends, it is important to know a thing or two about the subject matter.

About Table Salt (NaCl)

As we hit adolescence, our salt requirement increases from 2 g (1-3 years old) to 6 g in adults. The chemical formula for salt is NaCl which basically means chemically salt is 40% Na (Sodium) and 60% Cl(Chlorine). Na is an absolute necessity for normal nerve and muscle functioning. It plays important role as an electrolyte, maintaining intracellular and extracellular fluid level.

Many of you who might think about highly reactive Chlorine in salt and it’s harmful effect on human body. Let me clarify that Chlorine in table salt is ionised, meaning it has gained an electron and now it is negatively charged (chloride ions). The chloride ions are stable and is required for normal functioning of body processes such as nerve signalling and muscle function.

For adequate functioning of Human body, Na-K (Sodium - Potassium) need to be in balance. Even if one of them goes up or down, it causes adverse effect on human health. Various research done in the past decades, clearly supports that it is Na-K, that together control blood pressure.

How sodium(Na) controls blood pressure?

Sodium is dissolved in the blood. It attracts and holds water, so the sodium in the blood helps to maintain the liquid portion of the blood (aka plasma). When one consumes excess sodium, the body starts retaining more water as sodium holds water. Human blood vessels are not expandable. Thus the increased blood volume exerts pressure on blood vessels to accommodate the increased volume of blood causing rise in blood pressure. Frequent rise in BP is a risk factor for heart problems. The increased pressure damages blood vessel and can form plaque. Plaque blocking the blood flow to prime organs can be fatal.

Role of Potassium (K) 

To balance the negative effect of water retention by sodium, body has potassium. The increase in potassium concentration causes kidney to remove excess water thereby reducing water content in the blood and hence reducing Blood pressure. Potassium also plays vital role in maintaining your heartbeat, muscle contraction, cell-to-cell communication and digestion.

Before I delve into the topic of Low Sodium salts, I want to stress on a very important point - Moderation is the key, maintain balance and do not go overboard. Too much of anything is bad. If one has too much of K(potassium), body will flush out lot of water leading, loss fluid part of blood will cause drop in BP, which is again is a problem. This is why, Na-K level has to be balanced. Just above the kidney lies a gland called adrenal gland, which produces a steroid hormone called aldosterone.This hormone sends the signals to kidney and determine when to retain sodium. It also regulate the release of Potassium in urine. So kidney, together with adrenal glands monitor the levels of Sodium or potassium by expelling out excess electrolyte in urine when either of them becomes imbalanced. 

Now that we know basics of our everyday salt and its function, let us see how much salt we humans need per day and examine if low sodium salt has health benefits or it’s just a marketing gimmick to increase sales.

Daily requirement 

Sodium : ~2.4 grams (2400mg)

You can get this much sodium in just 6 grams of table salt( i. e 1 teaspoon).

Potassium : ~ 4.7 grams (4700mg)

A teaspoon of table salt (~6 g) has 2400 mg (~2.4 g) of sodium, which is around 40% of salt. So, you can suffice your daily need with just a teaspoon of salt. With increase in consumption of high salt diet like canned and fast food, we can easily surpass this limit. Normally inside the cells potassium level is high and outside, sodium level is high (Why is it so? May be evolution, that is how first cell evolved in primitive conditions (in ocean), which is rich in salt. To read more - http://www.pnas.org/content/109/14/E821.abstract. Also, to maintain the resting potential across plasma membrane of ~ 60-70mV for healthy functioning). 

Sodium(Na) has affinity for water. When the Na level in blood crosses the threshold, the excess sodium outside can pull water out of the cells causing them to shrink, damaging its organelles and collapsing internal machinery. To avoid this, a signal is sent to kidney to retain water to dilute sodium level in blood so that it doesn’t pull water out of vital cells. This saves the cells but increased blood volume exerts pressure on blood vessels. In long run, increased blood pressure can rupture the blood vessels forming plaques. Plaques can block the blood flow to vital organs leading to stroke.

The kidney has Na-K pump to pull or push the water out of system to maintain Na-K level in suitable ratio.

So, is low sodium salts the solution?  Well, it is not a solution. 

What are low sodium salts?

Low-sodium salts replace some of the sodium in sodium chloride with potassium. Basically, they contain sodium and potassium chloride. The amount replaced is so little that it does not makes much difference. Moreover, it increases potassium level (hyperkalemia) which is a cause of concern. As a consumer, it is important to know what you are increasing in your diet when you are aiming to go low on sodium. The reason behind this is due to the fact that we get potassium easily from junk food, fruits and vegetables and excess of potassium has it’s own side effects. I recently found a research article, which clearly shows potassium ill effects in a woman who went for low sodium salt and ended with hyperkalemia (High potassium in blood). Click here to read https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3692158/ . 

Everyone but patient with diabetes, cardiac, and renal diseases in particular, need to be very careful using low sodium salts.

To verify this, check below how much sodium is in normal table salt vs low sodium salt

Tata Table salt (per 100g)

Sodium    38,700 mg

Potassium      N.A

In 1 tsp (6 grams) - 2322 mg Sodium 

Tata salt Lite (A low sodium salt, per 100 g)

Sodium     33,200 mg 

Potassium  7,800 mg 

In 1 tsp (6 grams) - 1992 mg Sodium (just little less than its counterpart nothing significant to make a difference)  and 468 mg potassium.

The level of Potassium is not high but still a significant amount. Therefore, it needs to be highlighted so that we have clarity about the sold product, its intend use and its safety. 

Other famous low sodium salts like Lo salt has 33% sodium chloride and 66% potassium chloride, which is quite alarming.

In conclusion, I believe it is better to manage sodium with overall low salt intake and diet restriction. Most low sodium salts contain only little less sodium than its variant to make a significant health impact in people with high blood pressure. Moreover, low sodium salts increase the risk of developing hyperkalemia due to its high potassium percentage.

Read on : 
Natural ways to reduce salt uptake
Potassium (K) rich food

~Ren