
The Reassuring Science of Salt Consumption - tokenadult
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-06/the-reassuring-science-of-salt-consumption
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jimrandomh
The entire field of research around salt is a colossal fuckup, for a fairly
simple reason: sweat is salty. If you sweat, due to exercise or high
temperatures, you lose about 1g/L of sodium. So right off the bat, all the
research that's trying to find a population-wide correct amount of sodium to
eat is on a wrong track, because there's no such thing.

But it's even worse, because most of the research doesn't measure the amount
of sodium people take in through food, it measures the amount of sodium they
lose in urine. This isn't their intake, it's what's left after losses, so it's
confounded by exercise.

And it's even worse than _that_ , because while the actual studies indicate
that there's no benefit from cutting salt intake, some high-status
organizations once said there was, and are acting as though they can't take it
back without losing face.

The overall result is that there are a bunch of people shouting "less salt!"
and a bunch of people shouting "the same amount of salt!" and no one has any
model of how much salt they actually need, so they occasionally end up
deficient.

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tcj_phx
> The overall result is that there are a bunch of people shouting "less salt!"
> and a bunch of people shouting "the same amount of salt!" and no one has any
> model of how much salt they actually need, so they occasionally end up
> deficient.

Dr. Brewer's pregnancy diet calls for as much salt as the patient wants -
"salt to taste". One of the things I had to help my girlfriend with was
getting her over her salt phobia - she definitely wasn't getting enough.

There is a disconnect between medical science and the actual findings of
physiology. Medical students are indoctrinated with lots of facts and a little
dogma. The incorrect ideas stunts the progress of their field.

Veterinarians know to give animals as much salt as they want.

~~~
homero
Humans need salt licks

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kirrent
I always find it fascinating how much nutrition as a science is clearly in its
infancy. It's true that rigorous science in medicine is relatively recent
compared to other fields of study but in nutrition we're still seeing major
changes to the consensus and guidelines.

My favourite example is probably cholesterol. Nearly everyone instinctively
knows that eating too much cholesterol will raise your cholesterol levels and
puts you at risk of heart disease. Don't eat too many eggs or you'll go to an
early death. The thing is, that view, which has been informed from the advice
from authorities over the past few decades, is completely wrong.

As the panel determining the Dietary Guidelines for Americans concluded in
2014 - "Cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for
overconsumption," and as a result, warnings about cholesterol has since been
removed from the guidelines.

Obviously the link between dietary and blood cholesterol is more complex than
initially thought but it's still staggering to me that such a simple
recommendation could have been so wrong and how government guidelines can lag
the scientific consensus. It's interesting to see that much the same can be
applied to salt and the solution is the same. Eat a variety of food and try to
avoid as much processed food as possible.

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tcj_phx
> Eat a variety of food and try to avoid as much processed food as possible.

"Vegetable oil" is the most processed of all food ingredients. Almost all
cheap vegetable oils are extracted with solvents (Hexane) and steam-treated to
remove odors and lighten the color.

The only appropriate use for these oils is as biodiesel.

Coconut oil can be refined to safely remove odors without causing the oil
itself to go rancid. [1]

[1] [https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/coconut-oil-
refin...](https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/coconut-oil-
refined/profile)

~~~
gruez
Hexane is used as the solvent and it's evaporated away after oil extraction,
leaving behind oil. What's the issue here?

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jrapdx3
One thing easily overlooked is that recommendations for sodium intake depend
on individual considerations. Sodium restriction may be important in
conditions other than hypertension.

For example, people who excrete too much urinary calcium are at risk of kidney
stones and bone loss. Reducing salt consumption is usually necessary to
decrease calcium depletion and prevent bad outcomes.

As I've observed it, the chances of people getting too much dietary sodium far
exceeds getting too little. The FDA's idea to reduce sodium content of foods
is most likely a constructive step forward.

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mrfusion
I always wonder why things that taste salty don't seem to have that much
sodium. I was eating a bag of salt and vinager chips and could just taste all
the salt. I figured I'd be getting 150% of my dv of sodium but no only 9%.

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grogenaut
I couldn't find it wth a quick search but I remember an article about how the
food industry was voluntarily reducing the amount of salt in things. One
interesting part was reddenbocker lowering salt in popcorn. They did this by
realizing that it was actually the amount of surface area of salt on your
tongue not the mass of the salt that mattered. They had therefore gone to
ultra-fine ground salt and had reduced the total salt content of their popcorn
by like 70%. Wish I could find it but there were some interesting things by
googing "food industry salt reduction".

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JoeAltmaier
Similarly the orange dust on highly-flavored snack chips is superfine, to give
an extreme blast of flavor for very little ingredient investment.

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grogenaut
Also for maximum finger pore saturation!

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JoeAltmaier
One day we'll learn it is a health hazard, like talcum powder.

