Are your muscle cramps caused by a lack of salt in your diet?
Whether you’re struck down after a workout or screaming out in the night, muscle cramps are painful.
But scientists still don’t know what causes them. Their unpredictability and temporary nature (cramps, not scientists!) mean they’re hard to study. There may be no clear answers after 100 years of research, but whatever you think about scientists, they are not quitters — the research continues.
Footballer rolling around in pain (Image by shauking from Pixabay)
What is cramp?
If you’re lucky enough never to have had a muscle cramp, it’s ‘a sudden, temporary intense pain in a muscle’.
It usually happens in leg and foot muscles and there are two types:
- Exercise-induced cramp — occurs after or towards the end of a strenuous exercise session
- The cramp that wakes you up at night begging for mercy
Where did the lack of salt theory come from?
In the 1920s and 1930s, people believed cramps were related to dehydration and salt loss because industrial workers, such as coal miners, suffered cramps after long, hot shifts.
The hot air temperatures in coal mines made the workers sweat so scientists thought dehydration was a factor. Soon after, low salt levels were implicated too. Because of the dry air, miners drank water to relieve their dry mouth. Drinking excess water and sweating led to lower concentrations of salt in the miners’ bodies.
Based on this theory, miners drank salty water, which seemed to help — this is where the salt idea came from.
More observation of industrial workers found cramps often occurred in the second half of shifts, suggesting tiredness was a factor too.
Question: Is muscle cramp caused by lack of salt (or will an extra bag of crisps protect me)?
Answer: Sorry, crisps aren’t going to prevent your cramp.
What causes cramp?
Although there’s no definite answer, there are two main theories:
- Dehydration and a water/salt imbalance (related to the salt theory)
- Your nerves are sending the wrong signals to your muscles when they’re tired (muscle fatigue)
Currently, science is in favour of the muscle tiredness/wonky nerve-firing (not a medical term!) idea.
Try stretching to relief muscle cramp (Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay
Dehydration
Scientists have suspected dehydration was involved because athletes exercising in the heat get cramp. However, athletes exercising in the cold also get cramp. And sometimes athletes don’t get cramp at all with dehydration or altered salt levels!
What these conflicting findings mean is that if dehydration plays a role, it is probably a small one.
Muscle Tiredness
The popular idea is that, when overworked, nerves get confused about the messages they send to the brain.
If you’re tired and typing on your phone sometimes your fingers don’t respond quickly enough and every other word is misspelt. Kind of like that.
The nerves are firing away trying to keep up with the physical demands and then they get muddled up and fire messages incorrectly, or too often.
Muscle cramps often happen in the calf muscle. Calf muscles do a lot of work throughout the day. Every time you’re on your feet, the nerves are firing and the muscles working. If you’ve done some extra exercise, the cramp is probably due to muscle fatigue and mis-firing nerves.
Can I prevent muscle cramps?
I know what you’re thinking, cut out the exercise, that’s the major trigger, right?
Not a great idea — plus sitting around can also cause cramps.
The answer is you can’t do much about these occasional cramps. If you get a muscle cramp, you can ease it with stretching and massage — despite the pain it causes, it will soon ease on its own.
If you regularly get muscle cramps though, it is worth getting a health check-up to make sure it isn’t caused by something else.
Folk remedies/Old Wives’ Tales
Although there are no proven cramp preventions, folk remedies are often suggested. They usually involve strong or bitter flavours: quinine, mustard, pickle juice, vinegar. Unsurprisingly, sometimes they seem to work, sometimes they don’t.
The idea is that the sharp attack on your tongue distracts the nerves and muscles from their abnormal behaviour. But by the time you’ve got out of bed, nearly fallen down the stairs, and cramped your way into the kitchen, it’s probably gone on its own!
I’ll stick to massaging, stretching, and screaming, I think.
Don’t worry, you’ll soon be able to walk again (Image by Daniel Reche from Pixabay
Take Away Message
Cramps are not caused by too little salt in your diet. They probably happen because your muscles are tired but science doesn’t have all the answers yet. There is no known way to stop cramps happening but rubbing the muscle helps and the pain will go away after a short time.
If you get a lot of cramps, talk to a doctor.
Let me know what you thought of this article — would you like to see more Old Wives’ Tale myth busting?
