My next sub-medical notice.

A young woman friend of mine recently approached me with a strange question:

Can cheeses cause nighttime leg cramps?

I am not a nutritionist, nor a biochemist, nor even an organic chemist, and I “understand” cheeses only to the extent of their taste shades.

But here’s what she told me.

She noticed a strange coincidence: When she eats two cheeses for breakfast or lunch-cheddar or processed dip-cheese, which also contains cheddar, she often has severe cramps of the calf muscles at night.

As possible solution I advised her to eat salads at the same time on such “cheese” days, slightly salting them not with ordinary table salt, but with its potassium substitute, potassium chloride, which can be bought in any supermarket as a “Salt substitute”.

Three weeks later, she called me and happily informed me that she had conducted a series of experiments and was convinced of the effectiveness of my “recipe”. After the first two successful experiments, she specially increased the consumption of these cheeses, but ALWAYS with vegetable salads salted with potassium chloride! NO CRAMPS AT ALL!

I asked her, did she also eat it with salads before? (I thought maybe adding vegetables would change something?)

Of course, but with regular table salt. She is not a health worker, an English teacher, but she thinks logically and sensibly, since at first she managed to associate a certain type of food with seizures.

I thought “more widely”.

First, does it mean that there are types of food consumed by us that dramatically change the salt balance in the body?

How?

Perhaps there are some molecular complexes in this type of cheese that bind potassium ions and thereby change the balance of sodium and potassium ions in the blood, and hence in the tissues.

What exactly causes cramps of skeletal, striated muscles?

According to my hypothesis, muscles “DO NOT KNOW HOW” to contract themselves correctly, they need impulses from motor neurons, which are transmitted along the corresponding axons. The so-called potassium-sodium pump plays an important role in nerve fibers, providing a suitable imbalance of both ions and thus “preparing” the successful generation and conduction of nerve impulses (to the muscle, in this particular case). Due to changes in the potassium-sodium balance in the blood, the “pump” is disrupted and impulses do not enter the muscle often enough. But it NEEDS such contractions as a normal part of it’s existence (“peeing” and “pooping” muscle cells). When there is an overabundance of these “waste products” in the muscle, and there are no nerve signals to get rid of them, the muscle “tries to pee and poop on its own.”

BUT she DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO DO IT RIGHT herself, having contracted, instead of the subsequent instant relaxation in the norm, it remains in this spasmodically convulsive state, which causes severe pain.

The force of skeletal muscle contraction is directly related to the FREQUENCY of nerve impulses sent into it. It vibrates continuously, rather than remaining in a permanently contracted state!

And the second. If we take this topic even further, then perhaps not only muscle cramps, but also, perhaps, epileptic seizures also occur due to some kind of salt imbalance after some completely “innocent” food eaten?

And the third. Even “more widely”. Maybe autoimmune diseases worsen or weaken depending on the composition of the food consumed? That is, a person who is allergic to something may in one situation almost “not notice” his/her allergic reaction, and in another, with a certain type of food, give the strongest reaction to the same allergen and in the same dosage, up to anaphylactic shock?

This is just speculation, not by a doctor, not by a nutritionist, not by an endocrinologist, and not by a neurologist!

Faciant meliora potentes.

If I’m wrong, let my seniors correct me.

4 X 2025