I don't think I would want to live the rest of my life with half of my body paralyzed from a stroke though. As much as I like salt, it will truly jack with your system and I dont want to live with the effects from that.

How merry am I gonna be if I'm 300 pounds with aching joints, diabetes, a relatively immobile body and god knows what other physical discomfort? I'm in minimally ok shape now, but when I was in top physical condition, I felt incredible. And -bonus - I could eat whatever I wanted as long as I maintained the intense level of activity I was engaging in. It's not realistic though, so I'm trying to find that happy medium.

The problem is that salt is a passed down obsession. My parents use salt on their food and we always had a slat and pepper shaker on the table. It makes salt a habit and not a needed spice. Why is salt needed on watermelon or fruit when consumed? Why do people think that salt is need just to eat food? The way to prevent salt obsession, table the table salt.

First of all many people are avoiding salt that don't need to. While salt can and does affect blood pressure in some people -- in most it does not. Talk with your Doctor to see if you are really salt senitive.

"What is helpful is for the food industry to reformulate products to reduce sodium and increase the nutrient quality of foods by using real ingredients,"

In other words, ignore the study and do what we say.

This is such an important issue that it warrants more research. Scientists tend to make assumptions with isolated facts, without considering the overall benefits/risks, and this is possibly a classic example. They "assume" that, since less salt tends to lower blood pressure, it must be good for you, but then along comes a study that shows that less salt may actually decrease your life expectancy, perhaps because of other factors not considered.

MORE RESEARCH PLEASE.

Coffee good, coffee bad, salt good, salt bad, alcohol good, alcohol bad, the earth is cooling, the earth is warming..... I'll tell you whats bad, stress!!!!

I agree 100%.

We did cut back on salt -- I seldom add it in cooking anymore unless a recipe requires it. And after a few weeks, we noticed a great side effect -- the food tasted better! The salt masks so much flavor that food actually has! The bad side effect? Well, many restaurants use too much salt for my taste now. SIGH.

Wow Marcus -- right on. Anything to excess is bad. I actuallyhave cut back on salt just because it gets in teh way of other spices. I still use it but easily about 1/2 as much

I think this "study" shows that someone is anxious to justify the present extremely high salt levels in our food.

The truth probably is that if you are consuming 4x the maximum healthy level of salt on average,cutting down 5% probably will not make much difference.

I think this "study" shows that cartels can say anything they want and, for a price, find a "scientist" to back it up.

The accepted paradigm has always been that salt affects only a small part of the population - the so-called "salt sensitive" people.

So, in a study with a small population, it would be completely normal to find that salt did not affect morbidity or mortality in a statistically relevant manner.

It sucks if you are one of the salt-sensitive people, but the fact still remains that most people can eat quite a bit of salt and not have any untoward cardiac effects from it.

Systematic reviews published by the Cochrane Library are held in high regard in the medical community, often considered the "gold" standard in systematic reviews. Systematic reviews are usually considered the highest level of research in the medical field. So, claims that this is a junk study are way off base. I think it is reasonable that two conclusions can be made from this study.

First, it may well be that salt does not have a negative effect on your health. (A recent article on MSNBC that reported on a recent study suggested the same thing - only folks with congestive heart failure should avoid it.)

Second, you could conclude that because of the small number of study participants in total(6, 489), the numbers are not there to conclude that salt will not harm you. The problem is, you cannot conclude that it will harm you, either. So, either way, all the claims that salt is some terrible seasoning to add to your food are simply that - claims. There is no science to base the claim on at best, and when it come to medical decision making, the best decisions are made with support of research.

Actually, the sodium thing is highly overblown and medical researchers have long known that it depended on a lot of "surrogate endpoint correlation (SEC)" and a major leap of faith in the medical arts.

It is very difficult to conduct research on humans with things like salt intake. This is because researchers have no interest in doing harm to subjects. So medical researchers use a form of correlation that no researchers in any other field would use - SEC. SEC says that if A causes B and B is associated with C, then it can be assumed that A causes C, or some portion thereof. They look at is as salt causes edema and edema is associates with a higher risk of strokes and cardiac failure, so salt must increase your risk of heart attack. This sounds good on the surface, but it has never held water scientifically. We have known for years that correlation does not mean causation. And we have know for years that many correlations are either bogus or ignore several levels of complexity. The salt to stroke/cardiac event causality has never been made.

American physicians are very poorly trained in the area of "medical" myths. Medical schools have a tendency to teach exactly what was taught them. So we get major myths about vary basic functions.

This one joins the myth that one should drink 8 8-oz glasses of water a day, that the "average" temperature is 98.6 F, that antibiotics can kill viruses, and many others.

The average human body temp IS 98.6 F, emphasis on average. But I agree with you otherwise.

i don't know if i agree with chris's post

Medical schools don't teach myths--in fact, with the trend of evidence based medicine, you really need to have a good randomized control trial to teach anything

The obsession with salt comes from the media, not doctors. If you don't have high blood pressure, heart failure, or kidney disease, then there is no real reason to limit salt intake. Sure, less is probably better considering how much we do eat in this country, but not likely to have a major impact--exactly what this study says

I think high salt consumption may not seem to cause a problem for many years,then the high blood pressure appears.

People get used to very salty taste,come to think of it as normal,possibly even crave more. But the present situation is that most people have been trained to expect that salty taste even in their breakfast cereal. I have heard that putting extra salt into baby food causes the babies to grow up into adults who use more salt.

It is possible to get too little salt (sodium) but very unlikely. Most of us get more than twice the safe level and cannot do much about it. I think (over) salty food is at least as bad as second hand smoke.

I suspect a high sodium diet causes people to lose the ability to conserve sodium,causing them to need even more in hot sweaty weather. I think a person on a normal sodium diet-almost impossible with today's food industry-probably needs a little bit more sodium during hot sweaty weather.

What some are calling a low sodium diet is probably a moderately high sodium diet as opposed to an extremely high sodium diet. Perhaps if you have been on a high salt diet for many years the body is used to it to the point of having trouble if the sodium is reduced,sort of like quitting tobacco.

93.4% of all statistics are made up.

Ask a few mechanics what road salt does to the undersides of cars after a few salty winters.

Adding excessive amounts of salt to restaurant food in the kitchen is wrong.

There are people who cannot eat in restaurants because of excessively salted food that affects their controlled congestive heart failure or high blood pressure.

It is also wrong for the government to take the salt shaker away or to not allow you to use it once you get your food.

All canned food is not salted. That is one of the most foolish things I've ever read.

The vast majority of canned food uses salt as a preservative. It prevents microbial growth.

There are a few things out there without salt, but it is rare.

Most Americans get their sodium from processed foods - canned foods, frozen foods like TV dinners, and from restaurant meals.

The amount coming out of the salt shaker at home is negligible compared to the sodium from other sources.

Ever look at the sodium content of a piece of white bread?

Cassivella - The salt in commercial, (or home canned), foods is for the taste, not as a preservative. The canning process sterilizes and preserves the food by heating it, not because of the salt.

The proof is right on your grocer's shelves: low sodium canned vegetables, for instance.

Salt is the world's oldest known preservative.

In canned goods, the salt content allows the product to boil at a higher temperature during the sterilization process, which helps kills microbes.

Additionally, removal of water and addition of salt creates a solute-rich environment where osmotic pressure draws water out of microorganisms, retarding their growth.

Salt also slows the oxidation process.

In some products, salt helps retain the texture of the canned item.

Yes, there are low-sodium versions of canned items on the shelves, but this is because the original items had additional salt above what was needed for canning, so salt can be removed from the item.

You will rarely see a sodium-free canned item that doesn't have some other added preservative.

The exceptions are acid foods such as fruits and pickled items (although most pickles are pickled with brine as well as acid).

Sun drying is the worlds oldest known preservative.

Salt is not needed in the canning process, pressurization works quite well.

With proper canning temperatures, increased solute content is not needed to preserve food.

Salt is not an antioxidant.

Calcium Chloride is also used to improve/preserve texture.

There are no salt added canned products, (green beans, etc.), not just reduced salt.

Many canned fruits/jams jellies are high in sugar, not acid.

Nice try, though....

Darth,

It was never my argument that salt is necessary for every canned food item.

The point was that salt in the canned goods serves a purpose other than just for taste.

I think you are just being argumentative, but I'll play.

Sun drying is a method of preservation, not a preservative.

Just because other methods or products work, doesn't mean that manufacturers use them. Salt is one of the least expensive food additives out there. A manufacturer is much more likely to use salt as opposed to calcium chloride (which is a salt anyway) because of labeling issues - mainly because big chemical names scare people.

Yes, fruits are high in sugar. But, they also have a low pH. Ever drink tomato juice or orange juice when you have an ulcer?

Some "canned" items are now packed in retortable cartons that may not respond to pressurization in the same manner as cans.

Since my husband is a food technologist and chef, I have a little bit more than a passing knowledge about what he does. His company is one that comes up with things such as sodium blends that are used in canned goods. In fact, most of what he does right now is coming up with chemical and organic combinations to replace salt in processed foods.

And I have been cooking and canning for over 50 years, but am a Pharmacist, not a chef.

I do agree that many corporations use the cheapest method/ingredients they can. That is why so many use cottonseed oil.

The basic principle of heat sterilization that makes canning work is also not a preservative, rather a method of preservation.

Cartons can be processed under pressure, one must maintain the pressure until they have cooled, though.

Well then we have something in common.

<<PharmD

Feel free to not accept the benefits of the evil "Pharma" you so hate.

You are welcome to try the excruciating pain of smallpox.

How about an iron lung for your polio?

Oh wait. It's the new American past time. They've never seen anyone truly suffer from catastrophic disease because the evil Pharma has virtually wiped them out in America. And, they don't care to travel to the "third world" where diseases like cholera and dysentery cause people to @!$%# themselves to death for lack of a basic little pill from the evil Pharma.

Feel free to not take antibiotics the next time you get sick. The world is a better place without people whining about corporations that save lives every day.

The two examples you give were not created by "Big Pharma", but rather individual researchers. Yes, "Big Pharma" has produced incredible medicines and treatments, but we have paid dearly for them. I wouldn't fool myself into thinking they are not driven by profit, with a secondary consideration for our health.

Smallpox had been treated by immunizing with cowpox pus for centuries, but who manufactured the vaccines that eventually eradicated the virus from the world (except for those dishes at the CDC and in Russia)?

Salk worked at the University of Pittsburgh, and the oral vaccine team was mostly from the NIH, but again, who is making the polio vaccines? (The one we use now comes from GSK)

The "big Pharma" companies donate medications to far more people in the US and World than they have ever hurt.

Your prescribing doctor is the one who bears the responsibility for determining if a drug is right for you or not.

Don't blame the manufacturer when you suffer a known side-effect of the medication. It is the fault of your doctor for either not knowing the side effects of the medication he/she is prescribing, or for thinking the benefit of the drug outweighs the side effects in your case.

When you see those 1-800-bad-drug ads on the TV, every single one of the side effects they mention were in the prescribing information. Every law suit I have read has been the same situation.

People need to point their anger towards the actual cause of these incidents, which is the lack of education and lack of continuing education about drugs that doctors receive. They are the ones taking responsibility when they prescribe a drug to you.

Without profit, we would have no research for more medications. Even university research is guided by the patent-ability of the intended research product.

If you don't remember from science class in school, Edward Jenner in 1796 observed milkmaids that caught cowpox did not catch smallpox, and subsequently discovered the smallpox vaccine. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin each discovered a polio vaccine in the 1950's.

Yeah, J, which is exactly what I said.

Jenner didn't invent the cowpox idea - people have been inoculating themselves with cowpox for centuries before Jenner.

But Edward Jenner did not manufacture the vaccines that eradicated smallpox himself - those where made by drug companies.

And I also referenced Salk and Sabin (did you not even read my response?). Again, the research came from universities and the National Institutes of Health, but those entities did not manufacture the vaccines.

No breakthroughs in curing or treating disease are relevant if the cure/treatment cannot be mass produced.