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THE first time I questioned the conventional wisdom on the nature of a healthy diet, I was in my salad days, almost 40 years ago, and the subject was salt. Researchers were claiming that salt supplementation was unnecessary after strenuous exercise, and this advice was being passed on by health reporters. All I knew was that I had played high school football in suburban Maryland, sweating profusely through double sessions in the swamplike 90-degree days of August. Without salt pills, I couldn’t make it through a two-hour practice; I couldn’t walk across the parking lot afterward without cramping.
While sports nutritionists have since come around to recommend that we should indeed replenish salt when we sweat it out in physical activity, the message that we should avoid salt at all other times remains strong. Salt consumption is said to raise blood pressure, cause hypertension and increase the risk of premature death. This is why the Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines still consider salt Public Enemy No. 1, coming before fats, sugars and alcohol. It’s why the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suggested that reducing salt consumption is as critical to long-term health as quitting cigarettes.
And yet, this eat-less-salt argument has been surprisingly controversial — and difficult to defend. Not because the food industry opposes it, but because the actual evidence to support it has always been so weak.
I have always ignored the "expert" recommendations to limit salt in the diet. The trouble with that advice is that it's generated by people who sit behind a desk all day, and have never had to earn their daily "bread" by the sweat of their brow. Sodium is a vital electrolyte -- we can't live without it. How could it be prudent to arbitrarily and severely limit an element so vital for our very existence? This isn't rocket science.
IMO, the anti-salt campaign waged by the government and the medical industry is just another example of the iatrogenic policies that were adopted during the last half-century, to guarantee job security for the medical industry. Please don't misunderstand me -- I'm not saying that those policies were intentionally designed to boost the healthcare sector, but that is exactly the way they turned out. The BS about the dangers of eating red meat, and fat, etc., and the promotion of high-carb (grain-based) diets is also part of the misguided policies that rose to prominence in that time period.
Thanks for the link,
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
How do we ever know the truth about so many food /health myths or exaggerations? Between the medical profession, the drug companies and government "recommendations" I remain a sceptic.
Also, Just a note about the food restrictions we all live with.....I have a friend with m.s. that refused to be hospitalized for a heavy infusion of steroids and other meds in favor of a g/f, s/f, d/f,s/f and other "f"s that she doesn't tolerate. Her doctor was appalled to think she would try to control the progress of her disease with diet alone. This was 5 years ago. She is active, healthy and a very good golfer. No meds necessary since then.
Chris
Christine. wrote:Her doctor was appalled to think she would try to control the progress of her disease with diet alone. This was 5 years ago. She is active, healthy and a very good golfer. No meds necessary since then.
Good for her. That's awesome.
It sort of appears that in some cases, our doctors are the biggest obstacle we have to overcome in order to get our health back.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
In defense of our government public health establishment, statistics show a huge proportion of Americans have hypertension, even kids. We also know that most people eat processed food which is loaded with hidden sodium. In order to compel the food industry to reduce sodium levels to protect our most vulnerable and uninformed citizens, the appearance of an all-out war on salt must be waged.
Sadly, not enough Americans are sweating it out enough to require electrolyte replacement.
My palate has changed now and processed food I used to eat tastes really salty to me (canned soup - blech!). I think that comes from a diet of eating real food.
But I think the article is questioning the link between salt intake and ill health and whether current salt intake recommendations are necessarily good.
Last year, two such “meta-analyses” were published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international nonprofit organization founded to conduct unbiased reviews of medical evidence. The first of the two reviews concluded that cutting back “the amount of salt eaten reduces blood pressure, but there is insufficient evidence to confirm the predicted reductions in people dying prematurely or suffering cardiovascular disease.” The second concluded that “we do not know if low salt diets improve or worsen health outcomes.”
The idea that eating less salt can worsen health outcomes may sound bizarre, but it also has biological plausibility and is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, too. A 1972 paper in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that the less salt people ate, the higher their levels of a substance secreted by the kidneys, called renin, which set off a physiological cascade of events that seemed to end with an increased risk of heart disease. In this scenario: eat less salt, secrete more renin, get heart disease, die prematurely
and this
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.
I personally have taken the road of cooking most of my real food from scratch and salt it as necessary. I seldom salt anything at the table.
In this article Marion Nestle says that it is impossible to find people outside of those living in remote jungles who don't have a high salt diet because all of us eat processed foods and foods from restaurants. I don't. I almost never go out to eat and I seldom buy foods that have more than one ingredient. I also don't pay much if any attention to government nutrition recommendations or nutrition recommendations made by doctors or the medical establishment. I remember when I was at summer camp in the 60's we would bring salt tablets with us when we went on long hikes up mountains. I wonder if that is done any more.
My palate has changed these last two years. My taste buds are quicker to recoil if something is too sweet, sour, salty, or bitter. I seem to have a stronger sense of smell too. I no longer crave things like ketchup, mustard, & miracle whip which I assume are full of sugar. What I am craving is fats, fats, fats....I want to slather my gluten free toast with butter and I want more meat.
CoryGut
Age 71
Diagnosed with Lymphocytic Colitis Sept. 2010
On and off Entocort(Currently Off)
When I was in basic training in San Antonio in the summer (1976) there was a salt tablet dispenser in the barracks.
I have all sorts of hypertension and heart disease in my family. My parents used to use that "salt lite" stuff, but I'm pretty sure my father has gone back to regular salt, the same as he's gone back to real butter.
I never salt anything that I am cooking. Those who want it add salt at the table. I use Celtic salt because of all the good minerals in it besides NaCl.
I'm with you, Cory--meat forms a large part of my diet, and I will put a dollop of coconut oil on it before I warm it up.
Marliss Bombardier
Dum spiro, spero -- While I breathe, I hope
Psoriasis - the dark ages
Hashimoto's Thyroiditis - Dec 2001
Collagenous Colitis - Sept 2010
Granuloma Annulare - June 2011
Meat and fat are my go to foods along with bone broth (made from meat). My system can generally handle these when it can't handle anything else, which seems to be the case right now.
Deb
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