Salt Sense

For those out there that don't have a chance to read the peer-reviewed medical literature about salt and blood pressure please note:

1) The longest lived societies consume the most salt (Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, USA) - no short life for salt consumers.
2) The shortest lived societies consume the least salt (Yanomamo, Xingu rainforest dwellers) - lifelong elevated renin-aldosterone levels to prevent small amount of sodium from leaving the body.
3) The proven cardiovascular-positive Mediterranean diet is very high in salt because the salads and vegetables that contribute so much to good health are much more palatable for most people when a good deal of salt is added.
4) The most recent medical literature indicates that low sodium diets result in far higher death rates for congestive heart failure patients than regular sodium diets.
5) Reduced salt in food will worsen the obesity crisis as individuals will consume more simply to satisfy their sodium appetite and their hunger for taste satisfaction.
6) Young children and the 25% of the adult population that are supertasters will make worse food choices because the nutritionally-superior bitter phytochemicals found in dark green vegetables will not be palatable with lowsalt intakes.
7) The latest market figures in the UK indicate that table salt sales have skyrocketed by 18-28% in the last year, countering all their claimed reductions in processed foods and the notion that people’s tastes can be changed by some bureaucratic fiat.
8) Peer-reviewed evidence suggests the unintended consequences of salt reduction are cognitive impairment, adverseinfant neurodevelopment and increased attention deficits and falls in the elderly