

John Tierney: Salt Good or Bad? Nobody Knows (Yet) - cwan
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/science/23tier.html

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pyre
> _The harder the experts try to save Americans, the fatter we get. We
> followed their admirable advice to quit smoking, and by some estimates we
> gained 15 pounds apiece afterward. The extra weight was certainly a
> worthwhile trade-off for longer life and better health, but with success
> came a new challenge._

Huh? I think that that's a rather poor example of "oh noes! public health
officials have no idea what they are doing!"

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irons
Tierney can be counted on to reflexively rubbish any topic. He's sometimes
thought-provoking when I know something about the subject matter, and think it
good, because he will attempt to convince me that I'm wrong and it's terrible
(most notable example: recycling). But with background knowledge he's rarely
convincing, and without background knowledge, it's entirely possible to come
away knowing less. On balance, I avoid him.

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BigO
Please tell me I'm not the only one that thought this would be about password
salting and not table salt.

~~~
FluidDjango
Well, I was _hopeful_ before opening the thread.

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wrinklz
Full disclosure, I was a chemist at a famous salt company many years back. The
obsession with salt came following a study that showed a reduction in blood
pressure in hypertensive patients who went on a incredibly strict reduced salt
diet.

You can't infer from the study that non-hypertensive people have anything to
gain from restricting their salt intake, or that hypertensive people would
benefit from anything but a draconian salt reduction diet.

If you want to pay attention to salt in your diet, I would recommend getting
more potassium, preferably from fresh vegetables.

~~~
awa
My father had major health issues after following a reduced salt diet as
suggested by doctors due to his hypertension problem as his sodium fell below
the usual levels.

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ukdm
Living in the UK what I appreciate most of all is the amount of information
now available on food packaging. You can give me all the advice in the world,
but without that information on the pack it means very little.

The recommended daily limit for salt is 6 grams as far as I know. It's quite
difficult to stay within that limit if you eat what is seen as a healthy diet.
Breakfast cereals can have a surprisingly high salt content. Two slices of
bread instantly take a gram of salt out of your allowance. Like soup? Most
cans contain 2-3 grams of salt. Packaged meals can be packed full of salt,
especially curry.

The only way to be healthy is a balanced and varied diet in my opinion. Keep
your saturated fat levels down (> 20g a day), eat fruit and veg regularly, and
at least keep an eye on your salt. And of course, combine it with some regular
exercise.

~~~
jerf
Immediately after reading an article that points out that we don't know what
salt intake does, in a fully scientific sense of "don't know", you feel
empowered to make a recommendation about what salt intake I should have?
"Don't know" does not mean "Well, play it safe and cut it down", it means
_don't know_. Cutting down salt can have an adverse effect too; it is an
essential nutrient you are recommending we "keep an eye on" after all!

I find myself wondering how many more times we're going to read things like
"Before changing public policy, Dr. Alderman and Dr. McCarron suggest trying
something new: a rigorous test of the low-salt diet in a randomized clinical
trial. That proposal is rejected by the salt reformers as _too time-consuming
and expensive_. But when you contemplate the potential costs of another public
health debacle like the anti-fat campaign, a clinical trial can start to look
cheap." (Emphasis mine.) No, your judgment is _not_ so awesome we can just
bypass the scientific process, for any value of "your judgment".

Might I also add that you still seem to be stuck on the "public health debacle
like the anti-fat campaign"; I find the scientific evidence against saturated
fat to be wanting. As that paragraph implies, ultimately they did the same
thing you're advocating here for salt: They skipped over science because we
had to _act now!!!_ and it was OK to substitute their judgment for science.
We'll be another decade or two minimum flushing out the wrong idea that fat is
bad for you, decades in which those wrong ideas will cost hundreds of millions
more their lives and health. (Excluding transfats, which I think the evidence
is clear that they are.) The stakes on this stuff are _high_ , you'd better be
_damned sure_ you're right before you make public health pronouncements.

~~~
ukdm
It was opinion. They don't know with concrete scietific evidence how much salt
is good or bad for you. I'd suggest that too much of most things is bad for
you therefore I choose to have everything in moderation and follow guidelines
given out by the Food Standards Agency
(<http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/fss/salt/>). Whether you follow that
advice or not is up to the individual. Am I overweight? No, Is my blood
pressure high? No. Is this due to controlling my salt and fat intake? I have
no idea. But it works for me.

~~~
jodrellblank
If it's not due to controlling your salt and fat intake, then it _doesn't_
work for you, it's just correlated with some behaviour which does.

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sailormoon
Anyone who still has any shred of respect for these "public health experts",
who by all appearances are little more than irrational single-interest zealots
intent on pushing through their pet theory regardless of evidence, should seek
out and read _The Diet Delusion_ by Gary Taubes. It is an (IMO) authoritative
excoriation of the kinds of processes and personalities behind these
"recommendations" and will really open your eyes.

~~~
DarkShikari
And it explains this quite well:

 _The harder the experts try to save Americans, the fatter we get._

Obviously, since the dogma is "low fat", and "low fat" means more carbs, and
carbs generally make us fatter, the explanation for this becomes blindingly
obvious.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Is "low fat" the dogma?

I always thought that was just the general public getting confused about "fat"
(the essential part of your diet), "fat" (the vital organ of your body) and
"fat" (what you are if you are heavier, larger or just a different shape than
current fashion dictates). Do other languages use the same word for these
three concepts?

Yes I see hundreds of things advertised, mainly to women, as "low fat" which
are just filled full of sugar to make them appetising, but any medical expert,
even ones on TV, seem to emphasise good fats vs bad fats and calorie
consumption. They are more likely to warn against those "low fat" foods than
encourage them.

