Salt (Sodium) and Cardiovascular Health

[Kipper]

Published in this month's JAMA, which questions the association between salt and high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, etc.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/303/5/448

I personally think the article is VERY poorly argued: the author concludes with the following choice snippet - "...The rash route [for public health] is through universal sodium reduction. For countries like the United States, this means changing the diet of all its residents by reducing the sodium content of prepared foods." The operant assumption is that eating less salt would be such a horrible, unimaginable thing! I have trouble seeing that side of the argument. From a public health perspective excessive salt consumption doesn't just have cardiovascular risks but is associated with others as well (stomach cancer), and I tend to err on the side of caution. I should also add that the majority of expert opinion sits on the "less salt is better" side of the equation.

Thought it'd be worth a post.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Yeah, we actually discussed this in my "contemporary issues in nutrition" course. There's a physiological basis for the thought, but not as much research to back it. But really, who cares? If you reduce salt, you reduce something you have to spend money on (as a company or organization). I'm not quite sure why someone would be against reducing salt intake. You don't really have to take in much iodized salt to retain electrolyte balance and thyroid function. Seems like less would be better economically AND physiologically.

 

[Whisper]

Yeah, we actually discussed this in my "contemporary issues in nutrition" course. There's a physiological basis for the thought, but not as much research to back it. But really, who cares? If you reduce salt, you reduce something you have to spend money on (as a company or organization). I'm not quite sure why someone would be against reducing salt intake. You don't really have to take in much iodized salt to retain electrolyte balance and thyroid function. Seems like less would be better economically AND physiologically.

Companies tend to include it for (my guesses) the fact that it makes foods taste better (especially to males), and it might help certain foods "stay" a bit longer before going bad.

It's like asking why some chefs/restaurants add so much butter to entrees: It'd probably save them money not to do it, but then fewer people would like the food.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Salt is super cheap. It's probably the cheapest thing manufacturers can add to improve taste of processed food. And everyone keeps adding it to make their crap taste better than the next guy's. Something has to be done about this if we are ever going to get this nation's health and healthcare under control. With our lifestyles and food supply the solution goes betond just choosing to eat less salt. Universal sodium reduction is absolutely necessary. And sugar should be next on that list.

 

[Whisper]

While much of the current nutritional research is hectic (to say the least), given that it's tough to experimentally control and/or test for much of what they're looking at (and many of the underlying processes aren't especially well-understood), this is one of those situations where, while we may not know if/how bad sodium is for you, it probably won't hurt to have less of it in your diet.

Same deal with refined sugars and dietary cholesterol--are they the bane of existence, as many media outlets would have us believe? Probably not. But if nothing else, they likely aren't helping things very much.