Pink Salt in PureLung: The Heaviest Name on the Panel

It is rock salt, mined in Pakistan and sold in pink and white crystals. Its colour comes from traces of iron oxide. Chemically it is mostly sodium chloride, the same compound as ordinary table salt, with small traces of other minerals.

Claims that it holds dozens of minerals are true in a narrow sense, and the traces are too small to change your diet.

Salt is about 40 percent sodium by weight. If the salt were 300 mg, that would be around 120 mg of sodium per serving, a small share of a daily intake of about 2,300 mg recommended as a limit for adults. That figure is an example for scale, not a measurement, because the real amount is unknown.

Some people link salt to the lungs through salt rooms or salt inhalers. Those are inhaled uses, with their own questions, and nothing about them shows that swallowed salt reaches the airways. We found no study that supports a lung role for swallowed salt (Cleveland Clinic, Sea, Kosher and Pink Salt).

Salt is also a cheap bulk ingredient. Its first place on the list tells you something about weight, not about benefit. If the capsule is mostly salt by weight, the other ten names may be present in small amounts, which is worth knowing before you judge the blend by its length.