Quite a few of my relatives are medicos and one thing they all have in common is their patients come first. Medical science established a link between hypertension and high sodium intake and hypertensive patients have been frequently advised to limit salt intake for decades. If you're paranoid, yup you might think the quack is trying to do you in along with the evil spirits seeping up through the floorboards.
I would want to know more about that study supposedly debunking high sodium intake and death rates. Has it been levelised to remove any possible distortions in the health stats of the cohort? For example if the study includes a disproportionate number of hypertensive patients in the low sodium group, then the risks will be out of balance. Hypertensive patients are at higher risk for both stroke and heart disease.
As to "natural" salt, I think we are in the realm of clever marketing. You want to pay more for "natural salt flakes"? Good on you. You are supporting niche companies in the private sector. Just watch out that your "natural" product doesn't have too much potassium or radium and you probably won't do yourself any harm.
As for me, I will drink the tap water in preference to expensive bottled stuff and enjoy the faint whiff of chlorine. I will brush my teeth with fluoridated toothpaste and get a few more years out of the fangs. I will get the injections my GP says I need and I will limit my salt intake if he suggests it.
I trust my GP and if I didn't, I would find another I could trust. Meanwhile I have a tiled concrete floor so those evil spirits can't sneak in through the floorboards.
