Pink Himalayan salt is a pretty popular trend these days with the health crowd, but from my personal experience, there are good reasons not to use it.
I surely wouldn’t be writing this without collecting data from hundreds of clients from all over the world (thank you to all my wonderful clients that participated in my salt study!).
Let me explain.
When doing Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) with my clients, we assess their hair for around 35 different minerals, including — calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, copper, zinc, phosphorus, iron, manganese, chromium, selenium, cobalt, germanium, molybdenum, sulfur, uranium, arsenic, beryllium, mercury, cadmium, lead, aluminum, barium, bismuth, rubidium, lithium, nickel, platinum, thallium, vanadium, strontium, tin, titanium, tungsten, and zirconium.
HTMA a very non-invasive and cost-effective way to obtain a tissue sample. Similar to that of a biopsy, except with HTMA we aren’t looking for disease like a biopsy would, we are looking for nutrient status.
“Hair is a keratinized tissue consisting of protein. As the hair is being formed it is exposed to the internal metabolic environment including the blood, lymph, and extracellular fluids. Constituents entering the body are then accumulated into the hair and reflect a time-weighted exposure record of nutritional and toxic metal intake.” [4]
Something I see frequently with my clients is high-ish tin levels according to their hair analysis reports.
High Tin Level on HTMA
Sources of Tin
There are several common sources of tin, like: [1]
- Canned Foods
- Herbs
- Fungicides
- Dental Treatments
- Toothpaste
- Cooking Utensils
- Solders
- Dental Fillings
- PVC
- Ceramics
- Stannous Fluoride
- Marine Paints
- Collapsible Metal Containers
- Mining
But one source of tin I see much more than others is pink Himalayan salt. In fact, it’s now the number one question I ask my clients when I see elevated tin levels.
While I don’t see high tin levels in everyone that uses pink Himalayan salt, that may be due to the amount of salt used, as well the tin content may vary depending on the source, mining, and processing methods used by various pink salt brands.
You see, pink Himalayan salt does contain some important minerals, but it also contains some toxic heavy metals (in bold below), as well as radioactive substances (show with * below), and known poisons (shown with ^^ below). [5]
According to The Meadow Spectral Analysis, the following are the minerals found in pink Himalayan salt:
“actinium, aluminum, antimony, arsenic, astatine, barium, beryllium, bismuth, boron, bromine, cadmium, calcium, carbon, cerium, cesium, chlorine, chromium, cobalt, copper, dysprosium, erbium, europium, fluorine, francium, gadolinium, gallium, germanium, gold, hafnium, holmium, hydrogen, indium, iodine, iridium, iron, lanthanum, lead, lithium, lutetium, magnesium, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, neodymium, neptunium, nickel, niobium, nitrogen, osmium, oxygen, palladium, phosphorus, platinum, plutonium, polonium*, potassium, praseodymium, protactinium, radium*, rhenium, rhodium, rubidium, ruthenium, samarium, scandium, selenium, silicon, silver, sodium, strontium, sulfur, tantalum, tellurium, terbium, thallium^^, thorium, thulium, tin, titanium, uranium*, vanadium, wolfram, yttrium, ytterbium, zinc and zirconium.”
So What Is Wrong With High Tin?
Tin doesn’t have a biological function in the human body, and tin levels should hover close to zero. According to Trace Element Lab, “it has been reported that an excessive level of tin can interfere with iron metabolism and will produce heme breakdown. Elevated tin also increases the excretion of selenium and zinc from the body.” [1]
Tin toxicity is also linked with the following symptoms [3, 8]:
- abdominal pain
- vomiting
- nausea
- chronic fatigue syndrome
- are skin and eye irritation
- cholangitis of the lower biliary tract
- hepatotoxicity
- neurotoxicity
- psychomotor disturbance
- depression
- headache
- liver damage
Other Concerns with Pink Himalayan Salt
Aside from my concerns about pink Himalayan salt contributing to higher tin levels, there are other problems with the popular salt.
Other concerns include that iron oxide (a.k.a rust) is what that gives pink Himalayan salt it’s rosy color [6], speculation and concerns about lead, as well as the environmental concerns associated with importing fancy salt that is a finite resource from the mines in Pakistan.
Bottom Line
While pink Himalayan salt may have an abundance of minerals that are good for health, it also contains those that are not good for your health as well, outweighing any positive benefit.
Based on this and what I see in HTMA data, I choose to use a plain white Kosher salt without additives (like this or this).
When it comes down to what salt to use, it’s a personal decision. Take my clinical opinion and observations with a grain of salt and do what feels best for you.
Ready to find out your where your body stands when it comes to minerals and toxic heavy metals?
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Do you think fancy Himalayan salt is worth the hype? Please share in the comments!
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References:
[1] Trace Elements Lab
[2] https://themeadow.com/pages/minerals-in-himalayan-pink-salt-spectral-analysis
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3291572
[4] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b504/3481a060ed8b81113b97c3899b493bf4eabd.pdf
[5] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/pass-the-salt-but-not-that-pink-himalayan-stuff/
[6] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/different-types-of-salt
[7] https://acu-cell.com/tin.html
[8] https://www.chelationcommunity.com/2018/06/26/tin-toxicity/
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As a nutritional therapist, my passion is education. My goal is to help guide you to improve your nutrition through strategic eating (not dieting) and without expensive supplements! Because when you know better, you can feel better! 
With all due respect for all your research, with all the conflicting articles written about foods these days, you’ll find you can’t eat ANYTHING anymore. Seriously! Someone will always find something wrong about what was previously considered healthful. My way of life: Don’t eat things you definitely know are bad for your body but chill out and allow the universe’s Well Being provide. Putting so much attention on finding what’s wrong with foods makes it so, more than the possible things that may be wrong.
Alfred, seriously. This is why I don’t bite So easily when I see these sorts of warnings anymore. Of course I say this with all respect to the author.
Tomorrow you’ll see an article saying the white on salts is some unknown “hidden chemical” bad for you,. Then a year later we’ll see another study debunking it. It’s many to have negative relationships with food. Not good.
From what I hear any salt from the sea now has micro plastics in it, so I feel like you are always going to win some and lose some with salt. 🤷🏻♀️
Curious to know what salt you do recommend. Thanks!
My friend knows how to dowse which is like muscle testing, and her reading was that Himalayan pink salt would be detrimental and not to eat it. Thanks for explaining why.
Have you looked into Real Salt from the Great Salt Lake in Utah?
How about Redmond Real Salt? It is also somewhat pink.
I was just about to ask the same thing.
What about the microplastics that are found in all sea salt? They’re no better. I believe the tin level findings in your tests are way more related to harmful dental fillings than Himalayan sea salt. Harmful minerals are found naturally in every single natural mineral supplement not just Himalayan salt, because they’re a natural part of the environment. I think the best argument against the high consumption of Himalayan salt is that it’s a finite resource.
I found that with using a pendulum salt registers a -7 in benefit/nutrition on a scale of -10 to +10. That was very alarming to me; rat poison registers a -10. Salt is only 3 points away. This applies to regular table salt, sea salt or seasoned salt. So I just stay away from all salt.
I have learned that since salt is a non-organic substance, it is no use to the human body. It has to be organic; ie, it has to become a hydrocarbon, having a hydrogen and a carbon combined to be useful to the body. This is accomplished by plants. Every single mineral is basically a ‘rock’. Body cells do not allow ‘rocks’ to go through their membranes. Non-organic minerals are a mild poison and merely clog up the human body and interfere with healthy bodily processes.
If you want a bio-available source of salt, use such things as dulse.
You cant stay away from salt you need it for stomach acid and your blood is saline…….you will eventually get very sick without salt intake
Exactly true, you need salt for digestion the key to Nutrition and in fact Tin is vital for healthy hair. Without enough hair falls out…
The body needs sodium magnesium, potassium, boron, calcium, selenium, zinc, copper, iron, phosphorous, chloride and so on. These are minerals and inorganic in many of their forms.
I would love it if you tested my Pink Salt as I believe it is the very best you can get.
Quantum Nutrition Labs @ QNLabs.com – Quantum Pink Salt
FB = Quantum Nutrition Labs
Please contact me if you do.
It’s the source of where the salt comes from. We all need good healthy salt in our diets.
So many so called health foods can actually be unhealthy and even dangerous. Know your source where any of these products are from. Only buy from reputable sellers. If it’s to good of a deal it probably isn’t.
I use an air dried pink salt from the Himalayas and Hawaii. Heat kills all the good nutrients. Salt & pepper mills grind microscopic metal shavings onto your food. Unfortunately most salt is toxic. Sodium added to processed foods has the highest toxicity which is why we have so many health issues.
I had already decided not to use it because my hair iron increased 10fold over the norm!
I have not even eaten a kilo so it comes from something else, and related blood test were normal…
But of course I removed all sources including liver. I have to keep the red meat though. ..
Wow. Thanks for this article. Believe it or not, the pink color is often achieved by adding red food dye. The (nefarious) companies don’t have to list it because it is less than 3% of the overall content.
I got a kidney stone only one time. I wondered what it was made of, and when I broke it up, it looked just like Pink Himalayan Salt. I think it was! THAT hurt and I won’t eat that kind of salt anymore!
Kidney stones are not soluble so can’t be salt. They are formed from oxalates.