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Low-Salt Diets May Pose Health Risks, Study Finds
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- higherpurpose 12y agoWe're finding out that fat [1] isn't actually bad for you, now salt, too. I wonder if we'll find out sugar is good for us, too, before long. [1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230367840...
- notthetup 12y agoI'm pretty sure we will. At the end of the day it's the amount of each that's consumed that matters. As the old adage goes, everything is fine in moderation.
- icelancer 12y agoOr specifically, the laws of thermodynamics still apply.
- learc83 12y agoThere's been some evidence that sugar is actually worse for you that we used to think. It makes a bit of sense really. Fat and salt has always been part of the human diet, but large quantities of refined sugar are very recent.
- shard972 12y agoWhich is why America puts bread at the base of the food Pyramid, can't get enough of that sweet sugar.
- rdtsc 12y agoAs we've read in the recent front page article about cereal. The food and agricultural lobby is heavily involved in "recommended food pyramid" agenda. The most recent change I think was to make it a strange looking thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_guide_pyramid#mediaviewer/File:MyPyramidFood.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_guide_pyramid#mediaviewer... With "milk" being it own category. (Hello Milk Lobby) and then some humanoid shape running up the stairs. Basically the message is "eat whatever is marketed to you, but if you get fat is because you didn't run up the stairs enough".
- userbinator 12y agoIt has now turned into this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyPlate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyPlate
- ekianjo 12y ago> It makes a bit of sense really. Fat and salt has always been part of the human diet, but large quantities of refined sugar are very recent. That kind of reasoning is very much flawed. Why would the diet of x years ago be relevant versus having a better diet nowadays ? For all we know, our ancestors were eating berries and much less meat than we do, yet we seem to live longer those days and yet we ingest substances (such as medicines) that were not part of the human diet before. Actually, that line of reasoning does not make sense at all. That's why we run clinical studies. To find out answers.
- quattrofan 12y agoPossibly but two things to consider: - big factor in longer life spans are the advances in medicine last 150 years - our increase in meat consumption and cooked meat goes ways back and likely tied to our (threefold) increase in brain size
- ekianjo 12y agoWe have been eating meat for a long time, but the quantity of meat eaten since the second half of the 20th century is unprecedented. We are eating way more meat than before, that's for sure.
- learc83 12y ago>he quantity of meat eaten since the second half of the 20th century is unprecedented. That's not true at all. We're eating more meat than we did 100 years ago sure. But looking back significantly further than that, it's estimated that hunter gatherers got about 65% of their calories from animals, compared to much less than 20% we get today. See my reply above for references.
- ekianjo 12y agoI'll check you references later, but I'm wondering where the hunter gatherers got so much meat before they had industrial meat factories that we have - it cost much more energy before to either hunt or breed animals than it does now, it was not a viable proposition to eat as much meat as it is now. It just does not make sense to me at all. Besides, percentages is one thing, absolute intakes are another, too. EDIT: Besides, I can tell you from what I know on how people were living 50-70 years ago (grandfathers for example) that meat was expensive during their youth and that they only ate it once or twice a month, certainly not every single day like we do now. So I'm not sure where you got the impression people ate so much meat in the early 1900s while it defies all conversations I had with people who lived in that era.
- illumen 12y agoArg. The findings are that low salt is bad for you, which is what people have thought for ages. They did NOT find high salt wasn't actually bad for you.
- rdtsc 12y agoThere was actually a study done a while back looking if sugar causes "hyperactivity" in children. You know your typical cliché "kids ate cake, and now they are so hyper running around". And I believe they found that sugar does not cause hyperactivity, but somehow discovered that it helped either remember events better or learn new things. Now looking back I think I had experienced that myself -- I remember my mom made some strawberry jam and I was eating it with a spoon for whatever reason, and it was while studying for a final oral exam in history (this is a different country, were we had to memorize and answer all 50 or so questions and then we'd be questioned on it orally by student). Anyway that one instance, out of many instances in years before before and after, I was remembering and at much higher rate. At least high enough to be noticeable to me. Seeing the study years later kind of confirmed it.
- defen 12y agoWell, the brain does run on glucose...
- refurb 12y agoYou know what would be super helpful? If scientists came up with a rating system that described how confident they were in the results from a study. That way the public would know how much weight they should give the results. Independent body who runs a well-controlled double blinded study? A+ Biased organization who runs an analysis of questionable observational data with barely passible statistical significance? F They already do this for cancer therapies. NCCN gives rating that describe how much evidence exists for a given therapy.
- Swizec 12y agoScientists do in fact report how confident they are in their findings. Read original sources, most of them say things like "in X% of observed cases there was a Y% of Z over the course of T with confidence level of P". But that sells a lot less clicks than "SCIENCE SAYS LOW SALT IS BAD FOR YOU OMG"
- colechristensen 12y agoThe truth of the matter is that the general public shouldn't be reading scientific publications, because without the context of the intended audience, reasoning about what you read is incredibly difficult or impossible. This is doubly true for 'science journalists' who so very rarely are educated to be able to correctly translate and very often distill a paper into an incorrect and baiting article with only the tiniest shreds of truth. The confidence rating you mention has little value to the general public, and even among scientists, the value of 'p-value' is questionable and the matter of occasional debate. http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=712762#ThePValueFallacy http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=712762#ThePValueFal...
- Semaphor 12y agoexamine.com does that, they list level of confidence (A - "Robust research conducted with repeated double blind clinical trials" to D - "Uncontrolled or observational studies only") with a percentage value for consensus and a rating of the magnitude of the effects.
- userbinator 12y agoThe new study, which tracked more than 100,000 people from 17 countries over an average of more than three years, found that those who consumed fewer than 3,000 milligrams of sodium a day had a 27% higher risk of death or a serious event such as a heart attack or stroke in that period than those whose intake was estimated at 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams. Risk of death or other major events increased with intake above 6,000 milligrams. What are the chances that there are many other confounding factors? The first one that comes to mind is that people with extremely low sodium intakes may also be the same ones who are malnourished because they can barely afford food. It might also be interesting to see if there's a strong correlation between sodium intake and life expectancy; comparing http://cdn.chr-hansen.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Salt_Consumption_Map.png http://cdn.chr-hansen.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Salt_Consump... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_UN_WPP_2006.PNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_... roughly, it doesn't seem like there is much of one... and in fact the other sources I could find indicate a slight positive correlation.
- dap 12y agoIsn't it also plausible that many people on low-sodium diets were at risk of heart attack or stroke already (and that's why they were on the low-sodium diet)? Interesting result, for sure, and it'll be interesting to see the follow-up studies.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Mikeb85 12y agoCome on, some common sense is needed. Salt is required by our bodies, too little and we die, too much and the same thing. Same goes for fat, sugar, vitamins, minerals, etc... This isn't even new knowledge... Our bodies need various proteins, sugars and minerals in certain quantities - call the fucking press...
- nitrogen 12y agoAs I've commented on similar articles in the past, it's not enough to "just know" things; science has to prove them, repeatedly, in multiple ways. Sure it's tedious and repetitive, but it's absolutely essential to lay a solid foundation for the next generation of research.
- Mikeb85 12y agoOne only has to look into history - where there have been epidemics and people have died from lacking salt in their diet in various salt-deficient places. As an aside, there's also a reason that iodine is required to be added to salt and various stable products in some countries. Animals seek salt because they need it, as did ancient humans to the present day, saying humans need salt is like saying humans need water, or protein, or vitamin B. It's not like salt is some new chemical we know nothing about - we've known about it for at least 10,000 years (probably longer). It's nice and all that now we know you should have between 3000 and 6000 mg per day (which is higher than what agencies recommend, but apparently around the average consumption in many places anyway), but come on... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia Also, there's a reason athletes drink liquids with electrolytes in them (salt is one) - because the effects of a deficiency of salt and other electrolytes is known...
- nilsimsa 12y agoNext thing they will me telling me there is no evidence than salt raises blood pressure.
- johansch 12y agoYeah? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-th... http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/04/economist-explains-12 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/04/ec...
- MealSquares 12y agoThe cochrane review (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735439 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735439) already pointed in this direction, namely that although a reduced salt diet reduced blood pressure, that reduction was not correlated with decreased mortality in this case. Looking at sodium consumption without taking into account potassium consumption also appears to be a major issue with lots of previous salt studies. We had people recommend putting 1500mg (DASH diet level) in MealSquares, but we feel confident not going below the 2400mg level for health. Soylent ran into issues by including around a gram of salt in their 1.0 version with people getting dizzy from too little sodium in the diet. They're now suggesting adding some extra.
- trhway 12y agoconsidering the role sodium and potassium ions play (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_in_biology#Animals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_in_biology#Animals), it isn't surprising that too low of them is bad. Of course it is already well known that too much of them bad also. "Sodium is an essential nutrient that regulates blood volume, blood pressure, osmotic equilibrium and pH;..." doesn't it sound like it better be not too low and not too much ? :)
- jimmaswell 12y ago>doesn't it sound like it better be not too low and not too much ? :) That statement is pretty much impossible to logically disagree with so yes
- trhway 12y ago>That statement is pretty much impossible to logically disagree with so yes not impossible. At least for proponents of low sodium it is possible.
- jimmaswell 12y agoIf you're a proponent of low sodium then you don't believe the amount of sodium you advocate is "too low", you believe it's correct, and that the standard amount is "too high".
- andreash 12y agoWhy isn't there a soap opera about nutritional research?
- beagle3 12y agoNutritional research is more ridiculous and less scientific than any soap opera could ever hope to portray.
- egypturnash 12y agoIMHO it is damn near impossible to cut salt out of your diet in America unless you prepare everything you eat from scratch. Salt is everywhere. This sort of study makes me feel better about my intuition of what to do when my doctor told me to cut back on the salt, though: stop letting myself use it as a seasoning, think a few times before grabbing a snack whose entire purpose is to shovel salt into my mouth, but still eat things that had salt involved in their preparation. My blood pressure has gone from "why are you not keeling over right now" to "slightly elevated" thanks to this.
- tsmash 12y agolol no shit, old news do people still believe salt raises blood pressure too? keto recommends between 3 and 5 grams of salt per day your blood is salty, only way to replenish salt is through the diet, especially important if you're sweating
- Semaphor 12y ago> keto recommends between 3 and 5 grams of salt per day While I'm on keto myself and I love it, that sentence isn't exactly a proof for anything.
- jandrewrogers 12y agoAnecdotally, I have been a massive consumer of salt for my entire life. I consume almost no sugar; I have no attraction to eating food that is sweet and therefore do not eat it. Insulin resistance, and its myriad side effects, are not a major risk factor for me. I would argue that my risk factors are probably driven by factors associated with salty food that have nothing to do with sodium consumption per se. My blood pressure (and blood sugar) is essentially perfect after decades of absurd sodium consumption. However, as an example, a lot of salty food is deep fried and so there are other relevant consumption biases. Salt and sugar are not uniformly distributed throughout our food. My current (Pacific Northwest) diet of lean protein and fatty fish plus fresh vegetables has not exactly been detrimental as far as I can tell, even though it is loaded with salt.
- k-mcgrady 12y agoSo once again the advice seems to be, "eat a balanced diet, everything in moderation".
- oldspiceman 12y agoAnd stop trying to avoid food. Try adding healthy things to your diet instead. When I can't have something it just makes me want it more. The more healthy stuff you put in there the less room you'll have for crap.
- Evgeny 12y agoThis one appears to be useful because it has some concrete numbers. Because otherwise how would you define moderation? What is moderation to one is excess to another. Here we at least have "less than X and more than Y appears to be harmful", which is some actionable information. Edit: actually, my opinion on "everything in moderation" is even stronger: I consider it a useless advice. Because, where do you even begin? Should you use some salt in your cooking? But how much? Or should you use none, because there is already some present in foods you buy? Or should you actively avoid foods that have already some salt added? And it ends up like this: everyone thinks that he eats X in moderation, while anyone who eats less X is just unnecessary resticting himself, and anyone who eats more X is a glutton. Or consider, would you say "smoking in moderation is okay and healthful"? And if not, how do we know that there are no substances consumed as foods that act in a similar way - hurt us even taken in moderation?
- joyjoy 12y agoTomorrow high-salt diets may expose severe health risks, haha theese studies need to be drowned.
- panarky 12y agoThe research was funded through a variety of public, private and corporate sources, according to PHRI. Until I know who funded the research, I'm taking the results with a grain of salt. Do populations with high sodium intake also have other lifestyle factors that influence mortality and morbidity? Is it really the sodium that's causing the differences found in the study or are there other factors? How many times have we seen corporations fund research designed to support their interests and then selectively publish the results that are favorable to them? Would you view the research in a different light if you knew it was funded by PepsiCo, McDonalds, Sara Lee and Campbell Soup Company? Why aren't the funders disclosed along with the results?