Salt Health Risk?

A Big Pinch of Healthy Scepticism by Ian R Thorpe

Salt, health risk or health benefit

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle in the media about the dangers of salt in our diet. Some are going so far as to say salt is the new tobacco. While health campaigners have been banging on for several decades about how harmful salt is to humans (so harmful in fact that if we dont get enough we get very ill and die) in the last ten years the intensity of the campaign has been stepped up. Think back to 2004 and a government misinformation campaign that featured Sid, a giant slug with a message, who slimed his way onto television screens back to warn people about the dangers of consuming too much salt. Stay away from fast cars, loose women and SALT! he screamed. Stay away from SALT? Now that really is nonsensical. Sodium, the active ingredient of salt is not only one of the minerals most essential to life, it is present in everything we eat, in fact those

Sid the Slug

five a day portions of fruit and vegetables the governments misinformation campaigners are always haranguing us about contain quite a lot of sodium. Sids message, (YouTube) that a sprinkling of sodium not only kill slugs but humans too, has now become the received wisdom worldwide. High salt intake is linked to high blood pressure, or hypertension as medical scientists wrongly call it (well what would you expect, theyre scientists?) Salt is a key risk factor for strokes, heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases they rave. Together those rank as the worlds number one killers. In the warped and fervid imaginations of scientists salt induced cardio vascular problems are far bigger killers than malnutrition, poverty or old age . The World Health Organization (WHO the people who brought you the Swine Flu pandemic) puts cutting salt intake alongside quitting smoking as one of the top 10 best buys in public health. Blood pressure is the biggest cause of death in the world and salt is the most important thing that puts it up, says Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the London-based Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and chairman of the influential World Action on Salt and Health lobby group (WASH). Cutting back on salt gives a direct beneficial effect on the biggest cause of death in the world. Thats why its so important. Just think about the sheer idiocy of that statement and you realise Mr. McGregor is a serious rival to Barack Obama as the most stupid individual in the world. Blood pressure is the biggest killer? Well in a crazy way I suppose its true. If we dont have blood pressure were already dead, possibly through lack of sodium. Therefore everybody who dies must have some blood pressure in order to be able to do so. But you dont have to take my word for it. There are plenty of doctors and medical researchers question the science So what is the truth?

Salt refinery

Recent scientific research suggests the basis for a global hate campaign by the progressive liberal consensus against salt that rivals their hate campaigns against tobacco, alcohol, junk food and the working classes is not what youd call rock solid. In fact all, that is ALL, the evidence that was not funded by Big Pharma who want to protect us from cardio vascular disease by forcing anyone over 50 to take blood pressure lowering drugs) points to the fact that salt intake way above the recommended daily level is not harmful to people whose bodies are functioning normally. Two 2011 studies indicate that the evidence is inconclusive, or that reducing salt may even be harmful. I should point out here I almost died as a result of having too much sodium in my blood. The problem was not related to diet however but to stress. Too many years of working in a high stress environment resulted in an adrenal gland malfunction, Conns Syndrome, which cause my body to retain salt and eliminate potassium, a very dangerous imbalance of blood electrolytes. Once diagnosed the condition is easily controllable but my doctor (youve heard of Dr. Dolittle? Well this guy was Dr. Do-nothing;) was more interested in lecturing me on the evils of salt and an unhealthy diet than actually finding out what was wrong. Eventually I was left brain damaged and paralysed by a brain haemorrhage. (That is another story however which you can read in my memoir of recovery Calumnious Strokes which will be online soon.) Theres a view that salt is the root cause of all high blood pressure worldwide and some people religiously hold on to that belief, said Tony Heagerty, head of the cardiovascular research group at Britains Manchester University and a former

president of the International Society of Hypertension. But the evidence for that is actually pretty flimsy. As Dr. Heagarty says, If you torture data long enough it will give you the answer you want. Note that appearance of that word religiously. We have seen climate scientists turning their science into a religion, now we find that medical scientists are at it. Scientists seem to hold to the dogmas of their profession more tightly than the fine people of Pennsylvania are alleged by certain politicians to cling to their guns and Bibles. After years of claims by the academic lobby who are in the pay of Big Pharma and big government that on salt the science is settled (now where have we heard that before?) in recent months debate that has flared with each side harnessing a legion of experts in hypertension, heart disease, nutrition and scientific analysis. The salt industry has, naturally, jumped on studies that question the conventional wisdom, and at least one food manufacturer has started to add salt back to some of its processed foods. At times, as happened when people started to challenge the spurious and now discredited claims that the science was settled and carbon dioxide emitted by human activity was solely responsible for climate problems, the row became very personal with the science lobby, having no logical argument other than, Were scientists, that proves were right, adopting tactics usually associated with religious zealots and political seditionists to attack their critics. Us poor consumers are again trapped in the middle of these two interest groups, both of which stand to gain by winning their case. Some people in the anti salt lobby may have jumped to the conclusion that I am a fan of salty food. They could not be more wrong, I have always hated salty food and the junk food which relies on the addition of excessive salt to mask the fact that it is over processed, disgusting, bland, tasteless pap. I dislike the taste of salt too. But such things are down to individual choice. Instead of being allowed to exercise our freedom to choose we have become unsuspecting guinea pigs in a grand global experiment.

The two sides are totally polarized and theres no agreement or consensus on what the answer is, says Peter Sherratt of the UK Salt Association. Any new scientific paper which supports the anti-salt position is lauded as proof salt consumption is dangerous, but any piece of evidence or science showing salt is beneficial, or reducing it dangerous, is criticized as unrepresentative and unscientific, he said. This sounds, does it not, exactly like a reprise of the non debate about carbon dioxide, with the side that has government and the media on board simply shouting down opposing views. Science was ever fascism's whore. The salt issue has big implications for the pharmaceutical business however. Salt used in food accounts for only a fraction of the 250 million tonnes of annual global production. Looking at the United States alone, 1.5 million tonnes of
Inside a salt mine

so-called human nutrition salt was sold in 2009 with a value of more

than $321 million. But the U.S. snack foods industry, a key consumer of salt which includes major companies like Pepsicos Frito-Lay and Krafts Nabisco, has a combined annual revenue of $27 billion, according to analysis by company profile builder Hoovers. Then theres the business of selling drugs to treat high blood pressure. Worldwide sales of anti-hypertensives were around $35 billion in 2009, according to research by Deutsche Bank. There is a caveat here though. Salt is not dangerous so long as it is natural salt, sea salt, rock salt, what I have seen one very silly British expert describe as posh salt. There is nothing posh about natural salt. It is the commercial product, usually labelled table salt that poses the threat to our health is any threat exists. As with refined sugar and refined white flour, the compound you see in the packet might look pretty and snowy white (the colour of purity) but whether it ought legally to be

described as salt is a different matter. There is a big difference between any real salt (12-18% essential trace minerals by volume), and what many people in the world think is salt (what is left after real salt has all minerals removed - for sale to healthcare companies to be used in diet supplements? - and is BLEACHED with chlorine). The chlorinated salt is poison, which is why it makes people sick if they drink salt water, raises blood pressure, etc., whereas the real salt provides us with minerals that are essential to maintain life. So table salt is toxic and can be lethal in larges enough doses. Real (unprocessed, natural) salt is also something you wouldn't want to eat by the spoonful but is, in small quantities, something we would die without. Unfortunately, all processed food, and most salt in shakers (restaurants, homes) is the poisonous variety. In some countries, they are now even putting FLUORIDE in the salt (is it really worth sacrificing your general health in exchange for a slight chance of avoiding a tooth cavity? (Same kind as put in drinking water supplies in some parts of Europe and the USA - not the raw fluoride, but poisonous kind generated as a toxic waste byproduct of various industrial activities). So YES we all NEED salt as this article says, but make it good salt. So when we look objectively at the case against salt and wonder why it is so demonised, as usual its a case of follow the money. Regardless of the effect on health, there is more money at stake for the supporters of the anti salt lobby, particularly if they can persuade government to pass the laws that will make criminals of those who refuse to take their daily doses of blood thinners, beta blockers and artery scrubbers. Just dont ask about the harmful effects such drugs might have on
Harvesting sea salt

people who dont actually suffer from the conditions the drugs treat.
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