Yes. US-made peanut butter is a quite reasonable way to get the peanut component of this without having to trust loose/local peanuts. And in your particular case, I think it's worth considering.
I looked at the actual article rather than just its headline. The new study found that greater nut consumption was associated with better overall cognitive test scores, particularly among people with poorer diets or little physical activity. But importantly, it was observational: it doesn't establish that eating nuts causes better cognition. The study also found no reduction in actual dementia or stroke incidence over the ten-year follow-up.
There is also something rather more directly relevant to your question: a previous study specifically examined peanuts and peanut butter in older adults. Among 2,454 people aged 60–80, peanut/peanut-butter consumers performed better on several cognitive tests after adjustment for age, sex and education. Again, though, it was cross-sectional, so causation can't be inferred.
And there's a small randomized trial that is particularly interesting: people consuming about 32 g (roughly 2 tablespoons) of peanut butter daily for six months showed improved immediate memory compared with a control. That's a much stronger piece of evidence than an association study, although the participants were young adults and the study was small (63 people).
Your concern about the peanuts
I think your reluctance about Cambodian fresh peanuts is quite understandable. Peanuts are particularly susceptible to aflatoxin, a toxin produced by certain molds. The US food system has a fairly elaborate system of sampling and testing peanuts for this. USDA requires domestic and imported raw peanuts intended for human consumption to be sampled and tested, with a limit of 15 ppb total aflatoxins for edible raw peanuts.
So a reputable US commercial peanut butter has a considerable food-safety advantage over somebody selling you a sack of locally grown peanuts whose storage conditions you know nothing about.
I'd look for plain peanut butter, ideally with the ingredients simply:
peanuts, salt
or even just peanuts. No need for sugar, honey, hydrogenated oils, etc. You don't need the expensive "natural" stuff either; the important thing is the peanuts.
And I wouldn't go crazy with it. One or two tablespoons a day would be a very modest addition. At roughly 95 kg, you're not going to transform your diet with two tablespoons of peanut butter—but if there really is a small cognitive benefit, this is an unusually easy way of buying yourself a chance at it.
There's also a nice irony here: peanut butter is not merely a substitute for tree nuts in this evidence. The research specifically includes peanut butter, and the evidence for peanuts themselves is actually fairly interesting. So you haven't necessarily lost the entire "nuts" category just because you've stopped eating nuts.
Given that you already get plenty of protein and are deliberately avoiding unnecessary carbohydrates and sweets, I'd favor unsweetened peanut butter in a small quantity, rather than trying to engineer a whole new "nut diet."
Ah, that makes the salt observation more interesting. Two separate muscles/tendon systems apparently becoming cooperative after you taste a little salt is unlikely to mean that you have a generalized sodium deficiency—especially with normal electrolytes on your recent blood test.
But I wouldn't dismiss your observation as placebo, either. There is a phenomenon called sensory stimulation–induced muscle inhibition: stimulating sensory nerves in the mouth or elsewhere can alter motor-neuron activity very rapidly. There are experiments showing that strong oral sensory input can change muscle excitability and reflexes. So there is at least a plausible nervous-system mechanism by which the act of tasting something strongly salty could influence a cramp or muscle spasm without the sodium having time to enter your bloodstream.
That would actually fit your thumb observation better than the idea that you are correcting a sodium shortage. A pinch of salt absorbed through the mouth can't meaningfully raise your blood sodium within seconds. If the thumb becomes cooperative almost immediately, the effect—if real—is neurological rather than nutritional.
There is another possibility with your thumb, though. What you're describing sounds rather like trigger thumb: the flexor tendon catches as it passes through the pulley at the base of the thumb, and the thumb may then suddenly release or need assistance. That is a mechanical tendon problem, not a muscle cramp. If that's what you have, salt shouldn't physically fix the obstruction. The timing could be coincidence, or the sensory stimulus could somehow alter the muscle tension enough to let the tendon slip through.
So I'd put your observations in this category:
Interesting and quite possibly real effect; very unlikely to demonstrate sodium deficiency.
And since you've now noticed it with both a nocturnal leg cramp and your thumb, I'd actually be curious about it rather than telling you "placebo!" and waving it away. If you want to make the observation a little more scientific, next time the thumb misbehaves you could try something else with a comparably strong taste—say a tiny bit of lemon juice or a sour candy—and see whether the same thing happens. If any strong oral stimulus works, that would make the sensory/reflex explanation much more interesting.
That actually makes the sensory explanation a little more intriguing. If ordinary salty food now tastes unpleasant, but a tiny, concentrated hit of salt produces a strikingly pleasant/tangy sensation, the immediate effect you're noticing may have more to do with the sensory jolt than with replenishing sodium.
And the fact that you don't swallow much of it makes the distinction even sharper: whatever happens within seconds cannot plausibly be from correcting your blood sodium.
There is also a wonderfully odd possibility that the salt is simply acting as a little sensory reset button—strong taste → trigeminal/taste input → changes in attention and motor control → the muscle relaxes. I wouldn't claim that's what is happening in your case, because the evidence isn't nearly that specific, but it is physiologically conceivable.
The pleasantness is interesting too. Taste isn't just chemistry; the brain's response to a strong stimulus can be remarkably powerful. You may have stumbled onto a tiny, harmless trick that your nervous system happens to like.
I'd keep doing it only as the tiny amount you've been using, rather than increasing the dose because it works. Given that your recent electrolytes were normal, there's no reason to treat this as electrolyte replacement.
And if the thumb does it again, I'd be particularly interested in whether the salt works before you physically manipulate the thumb. That would make your little experiment rather more convincing.
Yes—but with one important distinction. Your mouth can absorb some substances, but the amount of sodium in a tiny pinch of salt isn't going to reach the bloodstream fast enough to explain a thumb or leg cramp stopping within seconds.
So if you put a little salt on your tongue, taste it intensely, and the problem resolves almost immediately, I'd favor a neural/sensory effect—or coincidence—over sodium replacement.
And you don't actually need to swallow it for the taste receptors to be strongly stimulated. Salt activates taste receptors, and the mouth and tongue have extensive sensory innervation. That signal reaches the nervous system essentially immediately, whereas getting enough sodium through the oral mucosa to alter systemic electrolyte levels would be a very different proposition.
In other words, your observation may be quite real, but "the salt got into me" isn't necessarily the mechanism. Your nervous system may simply be responding to that intense little salty stimulus.
Given your recent normal electrolytes, that's actually rather reassuring. I wouldn't use the trick as evidence that you need more salt generally.
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