SALT OR NOT...............

IT SEEMS THIS TORY GOV IS ONLY GOOD AT TAKING CARE OF THEMSELVES.

NOT WORTH THEIR SALT.

LOOK AT THEIR MISERABLE TRACK RECORD FROM A TO Z.

WE WOULDN'T GET THEM TO HELP US RUN A CHURCH PICNIC.

ANY GOV THAT HAS SUCH A DISCONNECT WITH THE PEOPLE SHOULD BE TOPPLED.

THE DICTATORS OF THE WORLD HAVE GOT IT RUFF BUT NOT CANADAS.

99% MUST WORK HARDER AND MAYBE TAKE NO SURVIVORS.

99% LADY AND GENTLEMAN YOU MUST GET INTO MLA AND MP POSITIONS TO MAKE THAT DIFFERENCES.

GO FOR IT NOW. MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOW.

Seafood and govt. spending

I eat a lot of seafood, which is claimed to be very healthy, yet most of it is quite salty. How does that square with this information?

Granville, the government is spending exponentially more of your, and our, money on useless manned fighters and other questionable items, military or otherwise.

Surely a little health benefit advertising can't anger you too much. It is a warning, not a prohibition.

Bill, the craving for salt

Bill, the craving for salt can indicate a body's low iodine level, but that does not make salt the direct cause of the illness.

According to alternative doctors, undiagnosed low iodine/LOW THYROID function that doesn't show up on tests (often accompanied by by a craving for salt in junk food as salt contains iodine) can actually be a harbinger of many illnesses, including heart.

It isn't that salt is the villain that CAUSES heart problems, etc., but a SYMPTOM in that the unwell person craves salt because of their body's mineral/potassium/iodine imbalance, and that the person already has the illness present.

Having said that, of course, yes, over-consumption of the other non-nutritional ingredients in junk food also contribute to poor health.

The real problem causing illnesses, in my view, is a corporate-run food industry that supplies non-nutritional food full of preservatives and chemicals -- food that is already "dead" when you buy it. Grow a garden, eat fresh produce, and buy local food!

Bill, the craving for salt

Bill, the craving for salt can indicate a body's low iodine level, but that does not make salt the direct cause of the illness.

According to alternative doctors, undiagnosed low iodine/LOW THYROID function that doesn't show up on tests (often accompanied by by a craving for salt in junk food as salt contains iodine) can actually be a harbinger of many illnesses, including heart.

It isn't that salt is the villain that CAUSES heart problems, etc., but a SYMPTOM in that the unwell person craves salt because of their body's mineral/potassium/iodine imbalance, and that the person already has the illness present.

Having said that, of course, yes, over-consumption of the other non-nutritional ingredients in junk food also contribute to poor health.

The real problem causing illnesses, in my view, is a corporate-run food industry that supplies non-nutritional food full of preservatives and chemicals -- food that is already "dead" when you buy it. Grow a garden, eat fresh produce, and buy local food!

Salt is not nearly as bad as most people think.

I remember taking part in a lab experiment which included parts of the class consuming various amounts of water with various concentrations of salt, and the effects on urine volume, salinity of urine and blood presssure were measured over time.

The result I remember most strongly was that the girls in the group who were picked for the urine analysis would strongarm one of the guys into doing this part of the experiment for her (in this case me).

The second thing that I got out of it was that the kidneys were very efficient at removing excess salt and water.

3.4 Grams of of salt is a miniscule amount.

P.S. Sugar has the same effect on blood pressure as does salt. A teaspoon of sugar is 16 grams. A double double at Tims' would have 10 times the osmotic insult to the body as an entire days recommended dose of salt.

Protect us from uninformed do-gooders

Bill Tieleman's blog has more misinformation in it than Mao's Little Red Book! It is astonishing how someone who appears to know so little about an issue can argue so vehemently, so passionately; yet provide no evidence to back his statements up. Bill, I bet you can convince everyone that the sun revolves around the earth or that spontaneous generation still occurs or that evolution is a fake. The human response to salt is described by physiology and science, not by do-gooders like Bill.
First of all, the food industry is not backing down from salt reduction, they are leading it - salt reduction research is the largest single research expenditure in the food industry, here and abroad. Not because the industry believes there is anything wrong with salt, but because they know that they might be able to gain an additional few inches of shelf space with low salt varieties.
If you read all the peer reviewed medical evidence it is clear that there are more clinical studies and more meta-reviews cautioning against salt reduction than are for it. Read the clinical evidence - don't just read the third and fourth hand opinions of ideologues, who feel obliged to give advice.
The most recent study in JAMA out of Univ. Hamilton (O'Donnell et al) shows that the government recommendations of 1500-2300 mg sodium per day results in significantly higher mortality than the levels we currently consume. So Bill, you eat what you want, but if you are recommending that people should be dropped down to that 1500-2300 mg danger zone, better get hold of a good malpractice lawyer, because in a court of law - the science and the clinical evidence, not the blowhards or the public health agencies will rule.

Oops

It looks like a teaspoon of sugar is more like 6 grams. My memory must be going downhill.

My name is happy and I'm a saltaholic

Or used to be until I had an intervention from the doc....:)
But Tieleman is (gag, cough, choke) right! At least on this one (his political opinions are another story) there is far too much sodium in processed food.
Theres not much you can do about that if you CHOOSE to eat at a restaraunt. But all processed food bought at a store has the ingrediant labelling on the back telling you exactly how much sodium, fat, calories,etc, etc are in the package. The information is all there for you to make an informed decision. We can only take the nanny state so far.
BT also mentioned shellfish in his rebuttal. The effects from cholesterol in shellfish far outweigh the effects of salt.
And the real food problem in our society - obesity - outweigh them all.

“Take this study with a huge grain of salt..."

TerryFirma claims the Journal of the American Medical Association study recommends higher salt intake than almost every other medical study to date.

Having checked , I note this direct quote, missing from Terry's tale:

"Published last night in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama) , the study of almost 30,000 patients confirmed the link between a high sodium intake and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease such as heart attack and stroke."

Also not mentioned: "A strongly worded editorial in the Lancet [British medical journal] in July claimed the totality of evidence showed “substantial (population) benefits in reducing the average intake of salt”.

More importantly still, the Harvard School of Public Health debunks this study:

"A new study would have you believe that low-salt diets raise your risk of dying from heart disease—a surprising finding, and one that’s sure to grab headlines worldwide. The only problem is that the study’s conclusions are most certainly wrong.

In the study, published in the May 4, 2011, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), European researchers followed 3,681 men and women for an average of about eight years....

Based on these findings, the study authors call into question recent estimates (2, 3) of the tens of thousands of heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac deaths that could be averted each year—and the billions of healthcare dollars that could be saved—by curbing Americans’ excessive salt intakes. Yet the study has several weaknesses, chief among them its modest size: With less than 4,000 participants—and only 84 deaths due to cardiovascular disease—the study is too small to support the authors’ sweeping conclusions.

Furthermore, the study’s findings are inconsistent with a multitude of other studies conducted over the past 25 years that show a clear and direct relationship between high salt intakes and high blood pressure, and in turn, cardiovascular disease risk. (4–10)

“Take this study with a huge grain of salt, and then dispose of it properly,” says Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the Dept. of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. “This study should not influence recommendations about sodium intake in any way.”

You can find this article at: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/salt/jama-sodium-study-flawed/

Finally - this doesn't change my central point - that voluntary efforts to reduce massive and harmful sodium intake have been killed by Ottawa.

- Bill Tieleman

Owl Roll: Thanks for the pearls of wisdom

"Granville, the government is spending exponentially more of your, and our, money on useless manned fighters and other questionable items, military or otherwise.

Surely a little health benefit advertising can't anger you too much. It is a warning, not a prohibition."

Few could connect the F35 fighter jet with a bag of potato chips, but you did it in one breath. It is a stretch, even for the Tyee. I still don't need a message from the federal gubmint about salt not even one for "Sodium City".

I know about salt. We put in on our French fries so the cholesterol doesn't clog our arteries. The salt keeps it in solution, right? Eat salt; no plaque. That says it all.

Tieleman

Be that as it may you are still missing the point that salt or sodium intolerance is more than likely an indicator of future health problems.

I am not saying that people should not pay attention to salt consumption although not everybody is affected to the same degree. What I am saying is that continued research is needed into kidney health in general.

Why do healthy kidneys start to deteriorate and is there anything we can do about it? Sodium retention is not going to be the only problem that we will have with our kidneys as we age.

Thanks Granville

I am a salt lover and eat too much of the stuff, but considerably less since my doc told me a few years ago that I had high blood pressure, possibly from salt consumption.

As to french fries and potato chips which I also like, I don't eat that plaque causing fat more than once or twice a year. Likewise red and cured meats, yummy, but...

Those are life and death choices we make for ourselves, not so when facing an F35.

And that Sodium city ad is

And that Sodium city ad is quite low key, much more bearable than those screaming pajama kids.

TerryFirma's JAMA study

I think TF was referring to a study by Dr Jan Staessen not one by Stolarz-Skrzypek K, Kuznetsova T, Thijs L, et al that your reference discusses and criticizes. Dr. Staessen's research also concludes that salt consumption is not a factor in heart attacks and that low salt consumption may be a factor.