Gary Taubes: Salt we misjudged you

[borofergie]

Another great article from the pound-for-pound best science journalist in the world:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/opini ... wanted=all

“You can say without any shadow of a doubt,” as I was told then by Drummond Rennie, an editor for The Journal of the American Medical Association, that the authorities pushing the eat-less-salt message had “made a commitment to salt education that goes way beyond the scientific facts.”

He also mentions diabetes briefly:

One could still argue that all these people should reduce their salt intake to prevent hypertension, except for the fact that four of these studies — involving Type 1 diabetics, Type 2 diabetics, healthy Europeans and patients with chronic heart failure — reported that the people eating salt at the lower limit of normal were more likely to have heart disease than those eating smack in the middle of the normal range. Effectively what the 1972 paper would have predicted.

 

[Defren]

Ahh this ties into another article I was reading. Apparently, salt these days has all the nutriments removed, and packed with chemicals that stop it clumping, but easier to pour. There was a study done, and even though all pre-packaged food is loaded with salt, there was a large percentage of people sodium deficient, due to salt not really being salt any more, just a mish mash of chemicals.

 

[librarising]

the people eating salt at the lower limit of normal were more likely to have heart disease than those eating smack in the middle of the normal range

Sounds just like the attitude to cholesterol. Lower cholesterol is more likely to get you than higher. But don't expect to be hearing that from any HCPs anytime soon.

Really not sure whether politics or medicine has more lies, **** lies, and statistics :roll:

Geoff
High fat, and now possibly high salt diet

 

[Paul1976]

Well,all reducing my salt intake did for me in the past following the whole "Salt is Bealzebub" boll@*cks,was severe and nasty cramps in my muscles that had me hopping around and howling like a Banshee so I sent that regime straight to 'Room 101' and started seasoning to MY taste again and all's tickety boo again and so is my blood pressure incedently...

 

[Grazer]

When I was in the tropics with the merchant navy, we used to be given a salt tablet with breakfast every morning, to supplement the lashings we sprinkled on our food and the heaps it was cooked in.