Posted on 04/08/2015 4:20:23 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
For years, Americans, especially those with high blood pressure, have been told that too much salt is bad for their health. But a growing chorus of medical and nutritional experts has begun to push back on that claim.
“We have been stuck in a time warp with this advice,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, the chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. "There is no solid evidence to support the current recommendations."
via Good Morning America
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Gee, thought this was a case of ‘settled science’...
It’s getting very, very difficult to figure out what to believe anymore, in just about any walk of life.
a growing chorus of medical and nutritional experts has begun to push back on that claim.
“We have been stuck in a time warp with this advice,”
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Global warming?
We’re supposed to believe politically driven “science” on climate change, when they still cant figure out the salt issue??
How DARE you bring critical thought into this discussion! Global warming is SETTLED SCIENCE! Nothing more to see here, move along.
/sarc
My old family doctor use to tell me to ignore the soup labels and just don't shake the shaker. He wasn't one that believed in all this garbage.
I’ve never understood why doctors don’t just read the physiology book that they had in their first year of pre-med. The saline levels in the blood stream are regulated by the adrenal gland. If you ingest more salt than is needed, you simply pee it out. Salt does not cause high blood pressure, it is a effect of high blood pressure. The blood pressure is regulated by the adrenal gland which controls the concentration of salt. It’s not the other way around.
If you crave salt, it’s because your adrenal gland wants to raise your blood pressure. The medical community needs to focus more on the fixing the real problem rather than just making everyone feel guilty for wanting more salt.
That's half of what I was getting at. The other half is, gov't is so full of liars on all sides of every issue that you don't know who you can trust or believe.
Depressing that it's come to this...
from the article:
Nissen pointed to several recent studies that chip away at the American Heart Association guidelines calling for people with high blood pressure to limit their salt intake to no more than 1,500 milligrams daily.
One such study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011. Examining the sodium intake of nearly 30,000 people, Irish researchers found that those with a very high intake of salt — 6,000 to 7,000 milligrams daily — were at higher risk for cardiovascular problems such as heart attack and stroke. But they also found that those with low salt intake were equally at risk.
This finding is important because it raises questions about whether someone with an average American intake of about 3,000 milligrams of sodium a day would benefit from making any reduction, Nissen said. More and better investigations should be done to determine if someone with high blood pressure would be helped or harmed by the current recommendation, he added.
Pass the sea salt please.
My mother carries “healthy” ideas to extremes. She once cut her salt back to the point that her electrolytes were so screwed up she ended up in the ER on an IV. This kind of stuff did not stop her from criticizing her father in law for eating bacon and eggs every morning. He was 93 and still riding a motorcycle.
When someone says “the science is settled”, it means their government subsidized grant check cleared.
Not everyone reacts to dietary salt the same way. Some folks experience a significant blood pressure rise in response to high salt intake, while others will show little or no change.
It is pretty much of a normal distribution across the population, so only about a third of the population are really sensitive to salt for blood pressure, with a small percentage being very sensitive. For most people it is just not an issue for major concern.
It may also change over time for an individual.
I remember Stossel doing a show on this many years ago.
That makes sense. I was talking to a lady the other day that ended up in the er because she was trying to lose weight and drank so much water she washed all the saline out of her body.
“Anybody besides me were issued salt tablets in the USAF?”
Yes, you betcha. For one example, during Basic Training in the hot San Antonio, Texas sun we were out on the obstacle course when we were ordered to take salt tablets and not to use any more than ordered the rest of the day. When we later arrived at the Mess Hall, our fatigues were white from perspiration and salt. We were handed over to our Flight TIs, and they ordered us to take salt pills, OR ELSE ruin would attend what little remained of our unworthy existence! They didn’t know we had already been dosed with what was supposed to be the daily maximum dosage. This created a dilemma when the TIs made it clear what was going to happen to us if we dared to speak so much as one word as we filed in to get our meal and eat it. Our Flight leader and his assistant obeyed the order to say nothing, even though it meant our Flight was supposedly about to be overdosed with the salt pills as we had been warned against earlier. It finally became necessary to step out of line, approach the TIs at their table, report, and alert them to the salt pill problem. One of the TIs countermanded the salt pill order, and the heavens did not fall upon and crush an unworthy soul. In fact, after that incident, the TIs would pass me by and descend instead upon the next person in formation until graduation.
The Flight leader and assistant lost their leadership positions not long afterwards when they failed to meet further expectations. This happened after fatigue duty with the landscaping. While a few of us were supposedly being punished for something we didn’t do by washing a few dishes in our crisp and clean fatigue uniforms down at distant Mess Hall and eating ice cream, the rest of the outfit who weren’t being punished for something they did do came back to the WWII era barracks with the green in their fatigues hardly visible underneath the mixture of sweat, dust, mud, and white body salt that left them stiff and as filthy as any respectable pig sty. It was a might peculiar situation that day.
“also found that those with low salt intake were equally at risk.”
So perhaps the conclusion should have been “salt doesn’t matter”.
I too had to go to emergency room for electrolytes imbalance, Spent 5 days on IV to get the sodium level back.
Before I even read this article, I have to say my husband will be overjoyed to confirm what he knows. He works hard, sweats a lot of salty sweat and he salts all his food a lot! His mother wags her finger and is so proud of not salting her food. However, she has in the past been admitted to the hospital to correct low sodium levels.
Too much water can kill you!
Many HBP patients take a diuretic which further eliminates electrolytes as in my mom in law’s case. Yet, she is so stubborn. When she gets low or we deduce she is getting low (how she acts and if she has been sweating) we make her take a certain salt tablet to get on track.
My son also sweats and he would get leg cramps and severe fatigue when he played football or threw shot put. We had to supply the salt tablets when he played college football because the athletic trainer only provided pickle juice. The strength coach started ordering the brand we used for players that needed them. Pickle juice? I couldn’t believe it but I think they were warned against salt tablets maybe.
Mmmmmmm....love my Himalayan salt....
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