Salt-laden foods quickly hinder blood vessels' ability to widen, new study shows
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comThose french fries can harm your heart in just 30 minutes
Seeded on Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:11 AM EST (msnbc.com)
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Leave a Comment:
Don't confuse me with all this liberal "science". If Glenn Beck says it's good for me, then it is.
Yeah, you should definetely let that alcoholic former cokehead idiot be your pillarof healthy food recommendations.., haha.
Bob - oh yeah - like he knows anything about anything!!!
Bob's kidding, geniuses. It's too bad typing doesn't have a sarcasm mode. Lots of good humor lost to literal interpretation.
That is OK with me Bob. If Glen Beck & all of his cult listeners want to consume all the salt they can eat, sounds great to me.
The harmful effects of french fries can be offset by large amounts of beer. If I keep saying it, it will be true.
I am going to apply for a research grant to prove my theory.
Hey Bob. WTF?
You know what is bad for my health? Wall Street corruption, unpatriotic corporations, and our government that supports the rape of this nation. Okay, now back to the really important stuff, like salt, pets, abortion, cigarettes, and not enough sleep.
How about booze?
This is just more sweet snack propaganda to get you off the peanuts and back on jelly beans. You go ahead and eat your sea salty snacky planters and you have a good day.
I hear you bro. Professors Glenn Beck and Rush Limburg know that salt is good for us and the liberals are coming with their junk science. Why don't the liberals leave us alone. If I want to consume all the salt in the world and die I should have the right to do so as is enshrined in the constitution. Our fore bearers, God bless their souls are more intelligent that the so called liberal elitist groups out their. Let us talk about American exceptionalism. We are the best and the liberals should get it through their empty north east elitist skull. Go Glenn Beck, Go Rush.
Maybe the next time I feel a bad headache coming on, I'll try an order of french fries. This kind of vascular restriction might be much better than some of those migraine drugs that make you feel like a zombie.
Please don't take away my favorite vice with these scare tactics! I keep my weight under control and exercise daily, I have normal to low blood pressure and excellent cholesterol. Now I can't even have my favorite potato chips? They're my occasional reward for staying healthy! Lighten up, food police!
Jane
No one is acting like food police. No one is taking away your potato chips. They are merely supplying you with information that you can use or ignore. Do you really just not want to know if you are eating unhealthy food?
A little alcohol in the blood stream counteracts the tendancy for cholesterol to stick to the artery walls, that 's why I always drink beer with my salty potato chips!
Amazingly, it takes about two hours for a couple of beers to wear off, could this just be a coincidence, or is it a sign that...
"Beer is living proof that God [Thor/Zeus/Whoevertakeyourpick] loves us and wants us to be happy" -- Ben Franklin
I agree with the beer quote but Ben Franklin never said it. It was made up quote by a bar owner to entertain his clientele.
How come when you eat something salty, you immediately want something sweet?
This is one of the more informative explanations of the dangers of salt but it is not welcome news. I've been eating less saturated fat, more tofu, more olive oil, less trans fat but most everything I love including tofu comes flavored with salt. I love salt. It makes a lot of things delicious. I can't imagine roasted potatoes, tofu, or stew without salt. Those other spices are nice but there is no substitute for salt and in fact salt substitutes are also a no no for me.
Snax
I felt the same way, but I drastically reduced the salt in my diet and after about a month on the low-salt regimen I discovered that foods I used to enjoy were unpleasantly salty. It seems to be a matter of just getting used to a lower salt level in foods. I now find that the taste of most canned soups, chile, and lots of other foods is too salty for me.
Just because it is not traditional table salt, does not make it healthy; it may or may not be more dangerous. Too much potassium can contribute to kidney problems.
Despite what you are implying, it NoSalt does not have only one ingredient.
I've been on a low sodium diet for a couple of years now due to high blood pressure. You adjust very quickly to the lack of salt. Food tastes better and you won't miss the sodium. You should give it a try, there really are health benefits to eliminating sodium. Ok, enough of the preaching.....
don97524 - you beat me to it! I was going to say the same thing. I quit adding salt to everything years ago and find that canned soups, certain preserved meats, etc., are way too salty to consume, which indicates that the body doesn't want that much salt.
Andrew - do a search on the other ingredients in NoSalt. Potassium Bitartrate is commonly known as cream of tartar. If you have ever eaten meringue on a pie, you have probably consumed cream of tartar. Adipic Acid is used as a flavorant and is also used in time-released medications. Silicon dioxide is sand, probably used as a filler. Fumaric Acid is used as a coagulant in puddings. Human skin naturally produces fumaric acid when exposed to sunlight. It is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle used by cells to produce energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from food. We can't live without ATP. None of these compounds are dangerous, nor do they pose a risk of any kind. So, don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
I occasionally eat at fast food restaurants (naughty me!), but always hated the fact that the fries were ridiculously salty. I started ordering them with no salt, adding what I wanted. Now I no longer use any salt on them. And, guess what? They taste like potatoes!!
Seriously? I'm honestly shocked that they can be identified as such, just without salt, after how they are prepared.
I believe that most of our foods are excessively salty and that the salt content of our food has been increased over the last 50 years a lot. People get used to a certain taste and expect it and most of our food tastes salty,even most breakfast cereals. I remember when French fries came in a cardboard "boat",they were unsalted and tasted better than today's. With the "boat" came packed a little paper wafer thing that you could break open and it had salt in it.
I don't like the taste of salt much and wish the addition of large amounts of salt to the food supply would stop. And for the salt lovers there is always the salt shaker,I don't think anyone is trying to take that away. That a diet with massive amounts of salt is bad might be boring old news but it is true news that the food industry is not being held responsible for.
Just factor one question in with everything you read or see - "How does this entity get paid". News media needs to "hook us in", and tend to take old news and recycle it with a new spin, and here they have sensationalized something that any literate adult should already be aware of. So unfortunately, in order to see the true picture of ANY published report, you need to read the academic studies, and then figure which ones were funded by the "for" groups and which ones were funded by the "against" groups. And, then (gasp) make your own informed decision, and accept the consequences that come with the choice.
But the prepared food and food additive industries have been hiding lots of nasty things in food for years, I suppose it will take a two-by-four across the head to get some people to put down their Pall Malls and actually read a food label. Campbell's Soup and the Glutamate Foundation Members has lots of $ to lose if we all just say no to additives in soup and make our own. Even "low sodium" products are still loaded with it. Other examples abound.
Are you aware that prepared food companies run focus groups and conduct very extensive (and expensive) behavioral studies to determine what manipulations of salty, sweet, texture, color, etc. will "hook" you on their product that in and of itself, has little substance? It's the same behavior study activity that Casinos use to determine what colors, sounds, smells, light sequences, etc. will keep your ass sitting at that slot machine. Conspiracy theory? Nah, just BIG return on investment.
Very well said!
It never ceases to amaze me, how little people actually think for themselves, and how few people there are who realize just how much of an influence corporations have over our very thoughts and beliefs.
People don't seem to understand, that the media these days, is no longer a source of journalism. Rather, the media nowadays is simply a medium used by corporations to disseminate whatever information they want the general public to believe.
AKA, propaganda.
MoreReverb - you hit the nail on its head!
And Bob opened this blog bashing Glenn Beck and we find out it's all propaganda from corporate America and Glenn had nothing to do with it. Pass the soup and crackers. Salter the better. That's why i take high blood pressure meds. And drink beer with my snacks.
What I dislike about the article is the way it's worded. They talk about salty snacks. So let me ask you, which has more salt -- a large glass of Lactaid milk or a normal serving of Ruffles? Wrong -- the large glass of lactaid milk. The Ruffles or 1 Gortons haddock filet baked? Wrong, the haddock fillet (2.5X). The Ruffles or a single serving of pasta with the average pasta sauce and a small amount of cheese? Wrong, the pasta (3X). The Ruffles or a plain English muffin? Wrong, about equal.
As a person with high blood pressure who is trying to cut down on salt, it's almost impossible to find normal foods in the grocery store that are not laden with salt. And the amount of salt food producers are putting in virtually everything is shocking. And in foods you would never expect.
vinlyn
Unfortunately, it seems that just about the only way to eat healthy is to buy raw and unprocessed foods and cook at home. I made the switch a couple of years ago and discovered that I love to cook. Lucky me!
vinlyn - I've fought cooking my own meals for years. I live alone and it's just too much trouble to cook for one person. However, I decided to start preparing my own meals in December, partly because the eateries in my area were all increasing their prices and partly because it's one of the few ways that I can find money to pay for health care insurance. I agree with don97524. After cooking for myself for almost two months, I can't even think of a local restaurant that serves anything that I want to eat. My food is much tastier. I don't add salt to anything whatsoever. Ingredients such as beef broth are already so loaded with salt that there is no reason to add it separately. As for making a mess to clean in the kitchen, I try to cook several servings of everything that I make and freeze the extra. That way, I can mess up the kitchen once but have 6-10 servings remaining that only require the microwave or heating in one pot on the stove. Besides significant savings over buyng meals in restaurants, there are also significant savings in not having to leave tips for the waiter. It all adds up quickly.
I ate some peanut butter cheese snack crackers just before I went to MSNBC! Why didn't I come here sooner? If I had only known.
They tasted good.
If you are trying to cut down on sodium, don't even think about going into most chain restaurants. The sodium in restaurant food is incredibly high. Soups, marinated items, and things with sauces are the worst offenders, but the salad dressing sodium content might just surprise you, as well. I used to travel almost every week, eating 3 meals a day in restaurants. Even though I always tried to stay with the lower sodium alternative, my health has improved significantly since I cut down on my travel.
This headline is fraudulent. Nowhere in this article is there any direct evidence that salt harms the heart. The only moral thing for the authors to due is admit they have made a mistake in the wording of the title. Of course, if the title correctly said salt impairs arterial expansion, the article would not get near as many hits. This is type of "journalism" one would expect of the National Enquirer, not a legitimate news source.
Edwin, you are exactly correct. The story talks about a transient hypertensive response. The headline talks about harm to the heart. The two may be linked in a general way in the long term, but this is phrased as though it were a direct link. For instance, if I eat a salty snack then exercise and sweat a lot, I strongly doubt any heart harm. If I eat a rare salty snack and don't exercise but eat well overall, I'm probably okay too.
This, folks, is why "science" is developing a bad reputation. Unwarranted conclusions are pulled out of an unqualified writer's posterior, and used as a headline for a simple study that said nothing resembling that magnitude.
The headline does not say that it WILL cause damage. It says it CAN cause damage. Are you seriously going to claim that in all instances impaired artery dilation CAN NOT harm the heart?
Science is not developing a bad reputation, people are losing the ability to read. While the headlines are sensationalist, they are not factually incorrect.
The heart has to work harder to force blood through the body if the arteries are inflexible. That is where the harm to the heart can occur.
Byron Raum is correct. People are losing the ability to read, analyze and make informed decisions.
For the authors to DO, not due. Throws any validity of your point right out the window.
Salt=hypertension. Hypertension=heart failure over time. Causal link between salt and harming the heart is ALREADY proven! Although the heart has some capacity to repair itself (this was not known until recently), the stretching of the heart muscle fibers from increased vascular resistance leads to heart failure. The author draws a logical conclusion. Better to be informed, than simply stick your head in the sand.
The problem is we develop a taste for salt as babies. All processed food is laden with sodium. I try very hard to not use salt in my cooking. I use spices. Whenever I buy frozen processed entres or canned soups (which is rare) I nearly gag on the sodium. It's what you get used to and I do believe it's a factor (not the only one) in high blood pressure.
Humans are evolutionarily designed to crave fat, salt, and sugar. It's because prior to modern times, food was difficult to come by. Sugar provided energy, fat provided "storage" for famines, and salt provided electrolytes. These three components are actually pretty uncommon in raw, natural foods that our ancestors survived off of, so our bodies craved them to stay alive.
Decreased levels of nitric oxide are the MAJOR factor in hypertension, regardless of genetic makeup or any other risk factors. If you're hypertensive and you're not doing everything you can to increase your levels of nitric oxide, then you clearly don't care very much about your life.
I do know what happens if you can manage to eliminate all the salt in your diet except that which comes from fresh foods and it isn't pretty----heart palpatations, dizziness, muscle weakness...
We need salt to survive that includes electrolytes which are salts.
What we don't need is an overdose of salt.
If you bothered to read the whole article you would notice that it actually says to keep salt in moderation. It states nothing about eliminated salt from your diet completely.
You need less than 1000mg of salt a day to live. Even endurance athletes don't have a huge increased need for salt. The average american eats like 5,000+mg a day.
I had eggs benedict for breakfast w/well done potatoes and didn't use a drop of salt - I guess Im safe!
Eggs Benedict cannot be made without salt!
There is salt in the ham or Canadian bacon. There is salt in the hollandaise sauce. There is salt in the English muffins. There is salt in the butter, unless you specifically used unsalted butter.
Eggs Florentine is a better choice if you are cutting back on salt. You replace the ham or bacon with spinach.
Wha! Please Auzziegirl, now your starting to sound like the mayor of New York City.
Salt has been around in man's diet for thousands of years. It is not going to kill you. Your body needs a certain amount of salt.
There is salt in almost everything nowdays. The operative word is MODERATION.
While I agree with most of the posters, this helpful information for those of us with coronary artery disease. We need salt but not as much as we think or sometimes get.
Screw her! Lets have an affair
That is very true. Those with CAD or other medical conditions do need to watch their salt intake.
This is ridiculous. One group got a low sodium soup, the other got soup with 10 times as much sodium? And they saw a reaction but it only lasted short term. Well, duh, exactly how much sodium did they give them. Also, was it sodium or iodine? If it was iodinized sodium, then there was also 10 time the amount of iodine, and with as much salt as we get in packaged foods, how much iodine are we ingesting? This is a rediculous conclusion to draw from this study. wow
Did you read the study, or the article vaguely summarizing the study?
If you read the cans of Campbell's Soup the next time you go shopping you will see that half the participants could have been served the low sodium version of Chicken and Noodle soup and the other half the regular version and it would work out to about the right ratio.
The old joke was Campbell's bought 1 chicken and 2 trucks of salt for each batch of soup.
Consuming average-to-high amounts of salt/sodium does not automatically or eventually lead to high blood pressure.
Scientists have shown that there is a genetic predisposition for some people to have salt sensitivity causing hypertension, but in others it doesn't seem to have this effect.
I doubt if they took into account that salt absorbs water, temporarily lowering it's volume, and hence, water's (blood's) wall pressure on the arteries. This would be an obvious indirect reason, in total contrast to their mind-blowing "firm" conclusion.
This water that is absorbed by this salt. tell us, where is it kept? Or does it just vanish?
yes1fan - I assume that you are trying to say that salt absorbs water, which decreases the concentration of the salt, not volume. One gram of salt in a liter of water is at a greater concentration that one gram of salt in two liters of water. The water absorbed by the salt increases the volume of water in the circulatory system. If you increase the volume of blood that the heart needs to pump, it has to work harder to pump, so you are increasing stress on the heart. You are also increasing pressure on the arteries as the volume increases. They are flexible only to a certain extent. It's like inflating a balloon. There comes a point when the pressure of the air is becoming too great for the balloon to handle.
You need to learn some physiology before jumping to conclusions yourself that are backwards to what is actually occurring.
These are questionable results since the study doesn't seem to take insulin into account: Carbs raise insulin which restricts blood vessels. Duh! This should be verified by using salty complete protein as the food and it should be confirmed by ensuring the participants have been on low carb diets for at least 7 days before testing.
I knew there would be right wingers decrying this. If its scientific research, right wing nut jobs are going to have a problem with it. (" well, the bible doesn't say that salty foods are bad for you"). Just stop this silliness, won't you?
damn. i love salt. i guess it's time I put down the shaker.....tomorrow
I agree you really can get along without a lot of salt in our diet. Most foods you eat already have a ton of sodium in them so why add more? The most important meal of the day is breakfast. Eat nutritionally in the morning and it will carry you throughout the day. www.desertforbreakfast.wordpress.com
Glenn Beck is an ignorant turkey!!!
Were does Glenn show up in this article?
It's all scare tactics! Granted salt in excess is bad for your health, but your body does need a minimum each day. Just like eggs. Years back they said they were not good for you, then they were good. Wine was good at dinner, then it wasn't. Please - I have normally very low blood pressure, and I use the salt shaker and eat potato chips every day. My pressure still remains very low!
Most people assume they need to restrict salt only if they have high blood pressure. What this is trying to tell you is that even if your blood pressure is fine heavy salt intake can eventually lead to a heart attack because it constricts your vessels in the same way plaque does. Moderation is fine, exercise still helps and monitoring your processed food is more important than a few sprinkles of salt on something for flavor. Is this really a shock to anyone? Use good old common sense or stay obsessively wrapped in your conspiracy theories and die young.
I teach human anatomy and physiology. The evidence we have shows:
1. People with hypertension should limit salt consumption.
2. People with normal blood pressure do not benefit from restricting salt.
I have a new diet for liberals.
It consists of an 8 oz. glass of ethylene glycol at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
The Gotham City Health Journal just came out with this conclusion: Texting while walking and eating French fries during rush hour traffic is bad and should be banned.
Just ask the lady who fell in the fountain :)
To the person suggesting that somehow the lack of arterial expansion is not related to the heart, I can only say, "Are you an idiot?"
Are you a doctor?
I think this is totally irresponsible journalism.
Think about it! It's meant to scare the public into demanding that the government regulate salt consumption for our health.
I for one demand that we have everything bad for us that we can consume completely unregulated. That way we'll all die sooner and Social Security and Medicare will remain solvent!
HAHA!
I agree. Every week there is another scary headline such as this. You said it all!
I can't afford to live a long life, and rely on ssi or bankrupt my kids by making them take care of me, or worse be put in a state hospital and die alone.
Coffee, cigarette, whole milk, ham & eggs...honey pass the salt, please.
Thats 20 minutes off my life no one will have to pay for.