Scientists challenging conventional wisdom to avoid salt - "No proof salt is bad for you"

[donnay]

Scientists challenging conventional wisdom to avoid salt - "No proof salt is bad for you"

Adam Withnall
The Independent
Thu, 03 Mar 2016 22:26 UTC

A group of scientists are challenging the now conventional wisdom that a low-sodium diet is better for your long-term health, asking whether people should take official advice on the matter with a pinch of salt.

In a new review of the evidence, a team of experts from Columbia University found there were "two distinct bodies of scholarship" on the matter - those who believe reducing salt intake will improve the overall health of the population, and those who don't.

Watching your salt intake has become one of the core pieces of dietary advice in the UK in recent years, and in the US it has got to the point where New York is requiring by law that restaurants label salt content in their food.

So it will be a surprise to many to find that just 54 per cent of the 269 academic reports included in the review found in favour of a salt reduction hypothesis.

Of the rest, a sizeable 33 per cent came to the conclusion that reducing salt makes no difference to long-term health, while 13 per cent were inconclusive.

That's not to say there isn't plenty of evidence linking salt intake to high blood pressure over time.

But, report co-author Ludovic Trinquart told the New York Post: "We simply found no definitive proof that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks or strokes for people with normal blood pressure."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...-a6909801.html

[donnay]

Flashback:

Why Real Salt Is So Important?

One of the diet rules we all “know” is that salt is bad for us. So why is real salt so important? Can it be a key to health recovery?

Salt was one of the earliest trade items and helped establish trade routes and villages all over the world. It was often used as money.

Salt was traditionally used to preserve food. It’s value was in allowing meats and vegetables to be salted and stored for later consumption, a huge advantage over having to hunt and gather fresh food all the time. Neanderthals mined salt, as well as ancient Chinese.

Real salt is the dried mineral residue from clean ocean waters. There are deep salt deposits on most continents where oceans dried up eons ago and left huge salt deposits behind. There are also natural salt springs that come out of the earth, and the water is collected and evaporated. Both salt mines and salt springs were important in establishing trade centers.

The way to collect fresh “new” salt is to evaporate ocean water from a clean area of the ocean. Sea water is collected in everything from clay pans to vast wooden deck enclosures, where it is repeatedly turned and left to dry by the heat of the sun.

Variances in local minerals, clays and water composition give rise to different colors and flavors of salt. The famous Himalayan Salt (yes, from high up in the Himalayan Mountains!) is pink. You can find gray, black, and red salt too.

http://primaldocs.com/members-blog/w...-so-important/

[donnay]

Salt Restriction Increases Heart Disease Deaths and Hospitalizations

by Dr. Brownstein
Holistic Medicine

Since graduating from medical school in 1989, I have come to the conclusion that much of what I was taught was wrong. In fact, at my medical school graduation, the dean said, “Fifty percent of what we just taught you was wrong, your job is to figure out which part was correct and which was incorrect.” When medical students come to my office, I always encourage them to question everything I tell them and, furthermore, to question what they have been taught.

I was taught in medical school that a lowered salt diet was a healthy diet—for everyone. Furthermore, it was drilled into my head that anyone with heart disease, particularly heart failure, should limit salt in his/her diet. In fact, it is still standard-of-care for a cardiologist to tell his/her heart patient to limit salt in their diet. This is especially true when the patient is suffering from heart failure.

So, does limiting salt in the diet of a patient with heart failure result in a better outcome?

A recent study (Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Heart Failure. Vol. 4, No. 1, January, 2016) sought to evaluate the impact of sodium restriction on heart failure outcomes. The authors enrolled 902 patients with heart failure and followed them for 36 months. Based on the sodium intake, the subjects were classified into sodium restricted (<2,500 mg/d) and unrestricted (>2,500 mg/d) groups. The primary outcome was death or hospitalization from heart failure.

Most Americans consume about 3,300 mg/day of sodium.

Results: Sodium restriction was associated with a significantly higher risk of death or heart failure hospitalization of 85%. According to this study, as compared to those who do not restrict their salt intake, for every six subjects that restrict their salt intake, there will be one increased death or hospitalization for heart failure. The authors concluded, “In symptomatic patients with chronic heart failure, sodium restriction may have a detrimental impact on outcome.”

Comment: Salt is the second major constituent in the human body, next to water. If doctors are going to suggest limiting the second major constituent in the body they should have good, solid data available to back up that recommendation. I have tested thousands of patients for their salt levels and I have found that the vast majority–over 90%–are salt deficient.

Folks, there has never been good, solid data that limiting salt in the diet of heart patients is beneficial. Yes, there have been some studies showing a benefit. However, there have been many other studies that have found the opposite conclusion.

http://healthimpactnews.com/2016/sal....GAxJV9Wq.dpuf

[Zippyjuan]

Does this mean a bowl of salt a day will make you live longer?

That's not to say there isn't plenty of evidence linking salt intake to high blood pressure over time.

But, report co-author Ludovic Trinquart told the New York Post: "We simply found no definitive proof that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks or strokes for people with normal blood pressure."

It says nothing about those with high blood pressure who are the ones suggested to reduce their salt intake.

Yes, there have been some studies showing a benefit. However, there have been many other studies that have found the opposite conclusion.

Study also does not say WHY some were on sodium restrictions and some were not. If the ones on the restriction were on it due to worse heath then one would expect more deaths in that category of patients.

I tried to read the paper for more details but it is restricted.

[thoughtomator]

Does this mean a bowl of salt a day will make you live longer?

No, but it does mean a mandatory vaccine made of salt is in your future. Just look for the guy in black with a big gun at your door.

[Cleaner44]

From what I understand, salt isn't bad for you, it is the imbalance of salt and potassium that causes problems. People need more potassium.

[Zippyjuan]

Real salt is the dried mineral residue from clean ocean waters. There are deep salt deposits on most continents where oceans dried up eons ago and left huge salt deposits behind. There are also natural salt springs that come out of the earth, and the water is collected and evaporated. Both salt mines and salt springs were important in establishing trade centers.

The way to collect fresh “new” salt is to evaporate ocean water from a clean area of the ocean. Sea water is collected in everything from clay pans to vast wooden deck enclosures, where it is repeatedly turned and left to dry by the heat of the sun.

Variances in local minerals, clays and water composition give rise to different colors and flavors of salt. The famous Himalayan Salt (yes, from high up in the Himalayan Mountains!) is pink. You can find gray, black, and red salt too.

Mined salt is residue from ocean waters which evaporated. Himalayan Salt is mined -no dried- salt (like regular table salt is) from the largest salt mine in the world. the "pink" is rust (iron oxide). Dried salts can contain contaminants and pollutants from the water.

Some salt is necessary. Too little and too much are harmful to the body.

[donnay]

‘Salt Your Way to Health': The remarkable healing ability of unrefined salt

Early in my medical career, I accepted the “low salt=lowered blood pressure” hypothesis unquestionably … until … I began to study the medical literature about salt. What I found was astounding; there is little data to support low-salt diets being effective at treating hypertension for the vast majority of people. Also, none of the studies looked at the use of unrefined salt, which contains many valuable vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium and potassium, which are vital to maintaining normal blood pressure.

Dr. David Brownstein

By Jed Stuber

Dr. David Brownstein begins Salt Your Way to Health by clearly stating that his purpose in writing the book is to refute two ideas that are commonly believed in the medical community and in popular culture. The first idea is that a low-salt diet is healthy. The second idea is that there is no difference between table salt and unrefined salt.

Brownstein believes the conventional wisdom about salt is fundamentally flawed for an astonishingly simple reason: The research is being done on the wrong kind of salt. To be more accurate, Dr. Brownstein would say that the stuff we call salt today isn’t complete salt.

It’s not salt according to the common understanding that stretches back to the beginning of recorded history. It’s not salt according to simple verifiable science that shows we have significantly altered the molecular makeup of the stuff in our salt shakers only in the past century or so.

Somewhat surprisingly, this health book by a medical doctor begins with a chapter full of fascinating facts from history.

Salt bars were used as currency for thousands of years. Governments collected taxes in salt. Roman soldiers were paid in salt, and we get the word salary from the Latin for salt. Salt was a vital preserving agent and played a significant role in wars. The North made disruption of the South’s salt supplies a key strategy in the American War Between the States, and it caused major problems for feeding the troops. In an important aspect of symbolism in da Vinci’s painting of “The Last Supper,” Judas is overturning the salt. All this background information serves to show that until the 20th century it was taken for granted that salt was valuable and good for you.

The second chapter of Salt Your Way to Health explains the differences between refined and unrefined salt. In the refining process, salt is treated with chemicals to remove minerals that are then sold off for use in industry. Up to 2 percent of refined salt may contain preserving agents including the potentially dangerous sodium ferrocyanide, ammonium citrate, and aluminum citrate. In the refining process, moisture is removed to increase shelf life, and the salt is bleached to produce a cleaner look that will increase sales.

http://samaritanministries.org/salt-...nrefined-salt/

[Chester Copperpot]

the key to health with salt (like all foods) is to consume the unrefined type replete with minerals and avoid the processed demineralized white table salt which is not a whole food

[Zippyjuan]

Himalayan Salt boasts 84 "essential nutrients" in their salt. But if you read a chemical analysis, the amounts of all but three are insignificant. The three- sodium, chloride (combining to make salt) and iron (the rust color). Some of those "essential nutrients" are highly toxic- plutonium, polonium, cadmium, uranium, arsenic- but like the "healthful" ones, are too small in amount to have any effect on the body (parts per billion or less). http://themeadow.com/pages/minerals-...ctral-analysis

One pinch of salt added to a ton (2000 pounds) of potato chips would be one part per billion .

[donnay]

the key to health with salt (like all foods) is to consume the unrefined type replete with minerals and avoid the processed demineralized white table salt which is not a whole food

Correct.

[Ronin Truth]

How about too much salt? Retains water, raises blood pressure?

[Chester Copperpot]

How about too much salt? Retains water, raises blood pressure?

That only happens from white table salt. That stuff is garbage. Use it to clean pots but dont eat it.

[Ronin Truth]

That only happens from white table salt. That stuff is garbage. Use it to clean pots but dont eat it.

NaCl is NaCl, is it not? Drinking sea water will kill you.

[donnay]

That only happens from white table salt. That stuff is garbage. Use it to clean pots but dont eat it.

Exactly. Or salt your iced walkway.

[Chester Copperpot]

NaCl is NaCl, is it not? Drinking sea water will kill you.

NaCl is NaCl... however real salt is more than that and white table salt is just that with some added chemicals.

drinking sea water <> eating salt

[William Tell]

Salt is good.

[Ronin Truth]

NaCl is NaCl... however real salt is more than that and white table salt is just that with some added chemicals.

Real salt? Let me guess, you weren't a chemistry major.

drinking sea water <> eating salt

No, it's drinking salt water which WILL kill you.

what will drinking sea water do to you?

https://www.google.com/search?q=what...97.Yhhx1Ekha8c

[Chester Copperpot]

what will drinking sea water do to you?

https://www.google.com/search?q=what...97.Yhhx1Ekha8c

I wasnt talking from a chemistry perspective.. I was talking from a perspective of refined salt vs unrefined salt.

I dont think you understand me.

drinking salt water is not equal to eating salt.

im not advocating you drink salt water.. but youll die without salt as well.

[Zippyjuan]

NaCl is NaCl, is it not? Drinking sea water will kill you.

Sea salt, table salt, and Himalayan salt all have the same percent NaCl. All will have the same impact on blood pressure, etc. The main difference is the size of the crystals. Table salt is typically ground finer. Larger crystals taste differently to your tongue but react the exact same when disolved in the body.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-li...t/faq-20058512

What's the difference between sea salt and table salt?

Answers from Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D.
The most notable differences between sea salt and table salt are in their taste, texture and processing.

Sea salt is produced through evaporation of ocean water or water from saltwater lakes, usually with little processing. Depending on the water source, this leaves behind certain trace minerals and elements. The minerals add flavor and color to sea salt, which also comes in a variety of coarseness levels.

Table salt is typically mined from underground salt deposits. Table salt is more heavily processed to eliminate minerals and usually contains an additive to prevent clumping. Most table salt also has added iodine, an essential nutrient that helps maintain a healthy thyroid.

Sea salt and table salt have the same basic nutritional value, despite the fact that sea salt is often promoted as being healthier. Sea salt and table salt contain comparable amounts of sodium by weight.

Whichever type of salt you enjoy, do so in moderation. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting sodium to less than 2,300 milligrams a day — or 1,500 milligrams if you're age 51 or older, or if you are black, or if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease.

[donnay]

You forgot to mention all the crap added to refined table salt.

“Table Salt” is a manufactured form of sodium called sodium chloride. While similar to naturally occurring rock, crystal, or sea salt, table salt merely mimics the taste of these elements.

Table salt is created by taking natural salt (or crude oil flake leftovers) and cooking it at 1200° Fahrenheit. Once the unprocessed salt is heated up to this temperature, it starts to lose the majority of the eighty important elements that are naturally occurring. Other naturally occurring forms of sodium, including sea salts and himalayan salts, are harvested and dried in the sun.

They are actually alkaline minerals that help keep us hydrated, balance our sodium-potassium ratios, as well as fill the body with powerful electrolytes. They also contain all of the trace elements needed for proper immune, thyroid and adrenal function (that are completely stripped out of table salt). Real forms of salt also boost the creation of digestive enzymes and juices that allow us to extract and assimilate other vitamins and nutrients from the food we eat.

What Is In Table Salt?

Commonly purchased iodized salts, available at super markets or sitting on the table of your favorite restaurant, have synthetic chemicals added to them. These chemicals include everything from manufactured forms of sodium solo-co-aluminate, iodide, sodium bicarbonate, fluoride, anti-caking agents, toxic amounts of potassium iodide and aluminium derivatives. It may come as a shock, but most table salt is not only unhealthy, but can sometimes be toxic.

The natural forms of important iodine is lost when we manufacture salt. Without this natural iodine, the thyroid is severely harmed, leading to growth and metabolism issues. Because of this, the chemical-based salt industry began to add synthetic forms of iodine to their products.

Other salts add things such as processed white sugar and toxic MSG (mono-sodium-glutamate). And what about the color of table salt? Salt found in the natural world is not usually white. Table salt has been colored white with bleach. And where does this salt come from? Much of it is the actual flaky residue from oil digging. That is correct. Crude oil extract is one way we produce table salt.

http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/n...ngers-of-salt/

[CPUd]

Do you folks enjoy having the exact same salt thread every 2 months?

[Chester Copperpot]

Sea salt, table salt, and Himalayan salt all have the same percent NaCl. All will have the same impact on blood pressure, etc. The main difference is the size of the crystals. Table salt is typically ground finer. Larger crystals taste differently to your tongue but react the exact same when disolved in the body.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-li...t/faq-20058512

youre clueless

[Chester Copperpot]

Do you folks enjoy having the exact same salt thread every 2 months?

i dont start these things, but i enjoy playing along... is this really a multiple thread?

[donnay]

Do you folks enjoy having the exact same salt thread every 2 months?

I don't think Zippy is listening.

[donnay]

i dont start these things, but i enjoy playing along... is this really a multiple thread?

No it isn't.

[Ronin Truth]

I would have to consider water salty enough to kill you, bad for you, at least somewhat. <shrug>

[Chester Copperpot]

I would have to consider water salty enough to kill you, bad for you, at least somewhat. <shrug>

well of course... too much anything will kill you.. the problem with salt water is that your body gets tricked when youre dying of thirst..

but separately you would limit the amount of salt you ingest.
your tastebuds are normally the best decider IMO.. (at least once theyve been reprogrammed)

[donnay]

I would have to consider water salty enough to kill you, bad for you, at least somewhat. <shrug>

Ever heard of Sole (Pronounced: So-lay)?




ETA:

[luctor-et-emergo]

Himalayan Salt boasts 84 "essential nutrients" in their salt. But if you read a chemical analysis, the amounts of all but three are insignificant. The three- sodium, chloride (combining to make salt) and iron (the rust color). Some of those "essential nutrients" are highly toxic- plutonium, polonium, cadmium, uranium, arsenic- but like the "healthful" ones, are too small in amount to have any effect on the body (parts per billion or less). http://themeadow.com/pages/minerals-...ctral-analysis

One pinch of salt added to a ton (2000 pounds) of potato chips would be one part per billion .

How can there be plutonium in there (man made element (mostly)) when it's mined ?!

[Small traces of plutonium-239, a few parts per trillion, and its decay products are naturally found in some concentrated ores of uranium] (just had to add this from wiki... )

So essentially there is no plutonium in there.