Low
Salt Diets Proven To Be Dangerous
For
years they all said the same thing. Researchers, mainstream doctors, and
government scientists marched together in lockstep to spread the
"low-sodium myth."
They told you salt was bad. They worked to drive America's sodium guidelines to new and dangerous lows. And they demonized anyone who dared challenge them.
Now, the federal government is on the verge of releasing a new set of dietary guidelines -- and a funny thing is happening.
Scientists around the world are breaking ranks. They're warning that a low-sodium diet could put your health in serious danger -- and maybe even threaten your life.
Andrew Mente knows just how deadly a low-sodium diet can be.
He's a professor at McMaster University in Ontario and one of the researchers on what became known as the PURE study.
Mente and his colleagues tracked 100,000 people around the world for three years and discovered that low-sodium diets can trigger production of a hormone called renin. It damages blood vessels and increases your risk of heart attack and stroke big time.
In fact, the PURE researchers found that if you want to lower your risk of heart disease or death, you need 3,000 to 6,000 mg of sodium a day.
A massive study out of Denmark last year reached almost the same conclusion Researchers found that eating less than 2,645 mg of sodium a day will actually increase your risk of death.
Could a sodium guideline above 3,000 mg a day be around the corner?
Don't count on it. The federal government -- and the key panel that advises it -- have been wary about straying too far from the 1,500 mg daily sodium limit the American Heart Association recommends.
And that's a problem for all of us. Because even the former AHA president, Dr. Suzanne Oparil, admits the 1,500 mg limit is "based on almost nothing."
Prior to 2003, the official mantra on salt was rather vague. The older Dietary Guidelines only said we should have "less salt," but didn't put a number on it.
So a committee from the Institute of Medicine decided to change all that.
Now, proper levels for vitamins and minerals are usually determined by seeing what a healthy population consumes. And here's where things start to go off the deep end.
The "healthy" population the IOM selected was a tribe living in the Amazonian Rain Forest called the Yanomami.
These Yanomami have amazingly low blood pressure...and they only consume around 500 mg a day of sodium.
Of course 500 mg was too low, even for the IOM people. So they arbitrarily tripled it. Their nice round figure of 1,500 mg a day was based on nothing -- and was eventually adopted by groups like AHA.
But what the IOM never reported was that the Yanomani -- those same tribespeople with the perfect blood pressure -- were dropping dead.
If they make it out of their 40s, it's considered remarkable. And they not only die young, but with sky-high levels of that damaging hormone renin circulating in their bodies.
Who knows why IOM omitted that little detail? Maybe they figured that what we didn't know wouldn't hurt us.
But they were wrong, and now scientists like Mente and Oparil are fighting back against years of junk science. They're trying to get our government to abandon the low-sodium myth forever -- before more of us end up like the Yanomani.
"There is no longer any valid basis for the current salt guidelines," Mente told the Washington Post recently. "So why are we still scaring people about salt?"
They told you salt was bad. They worked to drive America's sodium guidelines to new and dangerous lows. And they demonized anyone who dared challenge them.
Now, the federal government is on the verge of releasing a new set of dietary guidelines -- and a funny thing is happening.
Scientists around the world are breaking ranks. They're warning that a low-sodium diet could put your health in serious danger -- and maybe even threaten your life.
Andrew Mente knows just how deadly a low-sodium diet can be.
He's a professor at McMaster University in Ontario and one of the researchers on what became known as the PURE study.
Mente and his colleagues tracked 100,000 people around the world for three years and discovered that low-sodium diets can trigger production of a hormone called renin. It damages blood vessels and increases your risk of heart attack and stroke big time.
In fact, the PURE researchers found that if you want to lower your risk of heart disease or death, you need 3,000 to 6,000 mg of sodium a day.
A massive study out of Denmark last year reached almost the same conclusion Researchers found that eating less than 2,645 mg of sodium a day will actually increase your risk of death.
Could a sodium guideline above 3,000 mg a day be around the corner?
Don't count on it. The federal government -- and the key panel that advises it -- have been wary about straying too far from the 1,500 mg daily sodium limit the American Heart Association recommends.
And that's a problem for all of us. Because even the former AHA president, Dr. Suzanne Oparil, admits the 1,500 mg limit is "based on almost nothing."
Prior to 2003, the official mantra on salt was rather vague. The older Dietary Guidelines only said we should have "less salt," but didn't put a number on it.
So a committee from the Institute of Medicine decided to change all that.
Now, proper levels for vitamins and minerals are usually determined by seeing what a healthy population consumes. And here's where things start to go off the deep end.
The "healthy" population the IOM selected was a tribe living in the Amazonian Rain Forest called the Yanomami.
These Yanomami have amazingly low blood pressure...and they only consume around 500 mg a day of sodium.
Of course 500 mg was too low, even for the IOM people. So they arbitrarily tripled it. Their nice round figure of 1,500 mg a day was based on nothing -- and was eventually adopted by groups like AHA.
But what the IOM never reported was that the Yanomani -- those same tribespeople with the perfect blood pressure -- were dropping dead.
If they make it out of their 40s, it's considered remarkable. And they not only die young, but with sky-high levels of that damaging hormone renin circulating in their bodies.
Who knows why IOM omitted that little detail? Maybe they figured that what we didn't know wouldn't hurt us.
But they were wrong, and now scientists like Mente and Oparil are fighting back against years of junk science. They're trying to get our government to abandon the low-sodium myth forever -- before more of us end up like the Yanomani.
"There is no longer any valid basis for the current salt guidelines," Mente told the Washington Post recently. "So why are we still scaring people about salt?"
My
Comment:
Try
to use sea salt for most of your salt needs. We still get a lot of regular
table salt with iodine added from everything else we buy that has been
processed.
It's the kind of home run that would have billion-dollar drug companies
drooling. Imagine a substance that can slash stroke risk by one-fifth for
people with high blood pressure.
But it wasn't some hotshot new drug that pulled off this feat in a recent study -- it was the B vitamin known as folic acid.
In a nearly five-year, double-blind (the gold-standard in testing) clinical trial, Chinese researchers looked at 21,700 adults with hypertension who had never had a stroke.
Half the volunteers had a daily 0.8 mg. dose of folic acid added to their treatment plan, and half didn't. When the study concluded, the researchers found that the simple addition of folic acid was able to keep stroke risk down by 21 percent.
And you don't have to have hypertension to benefit from folic acid. An earlier study found folic acid supplementation can reduce your stroke risk 18 percent even if you have perfect blood pressure.
It's easy to get folate, the natural form of folic acid, in lots of the foods you eat every day. That includes spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, avocados, citrus fruits, beans, peas, lentils, beets, okra, asparagus, nuts and seeds...the list goes on and on!
And another form, called L-5- MTHF, can be found in nearly all B complex supplements.
Folic acid helps you grow and maintain new cells. And it may help prevent strokes by regulating blood levels of homocysteine. When these go too high, they can cause blood clots that result in both strokes and heart attacks.
But it wasn't some hotshot new drug that pulled off this feat in a recent study -- it was the B vitamin known as folic acid.
In a nearly five-year, double-blind (the gold-standard in testing) clinical trial, Chinese researchers looked at 21,700 adults with hypertension who had never had a stroke.
Half the volunteers had a daily 0.8 mg. dose of folic acid added to their treatment plan, and half didn't. When the study concluded, the researchers found that the simple addition of folic acid was able to keep stroke risk down by 21 percent.
And you don't have to have hypertension to benefit from folic acid. An earlier study found folic acid supplementation can reduce your stroke risk 18 percent even if you have perfect blood pressure.
It's easy to get folate, the natural form of folic acid, in lots of the foods you eat every day. That includes spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, avocados, citrus fruits, beans, peas, lentils, beets, okra, asparagus, nuts and seeds...the list goes on and on!
And another form, called L-5- MTHF, can be found in nearly all B complex supplements.
Folic acid helps you grow and maintain new cells. And it may help prevent strokes by regulating blood levels of homocysteine. When these go too high, they can cause blood clots that result in both strokes and heart attacks.
Lower
homocysteine levels and fewer strokes. That's not just a home run -- it's a
grand slam.
Curb
Chocolate Cravings with a Short Walk
Are
you struggling to crush your chocolate cravings? Does one chunk lead to another
and then another until before you know it, the whole bar has gone?
Well,
there's a simple way to break this bad habit according to a recent study,
and that's with a walk.
Scientists
from the University of Innsbruck in Austria reached this conclusion after an
experiment with 47 overweight people who eat chocolate every day.
To
ensure participants craved chocolate before the investigation, they had to
avoid sugary snacks for three days. Then they were split into two groups.
The
first group took a brisk 15-minute walk on a treadmill while the second group
sat quietly for the same period of time. To heighten cravings even further,
individuals from both groups took a mental test known to induce stress like
responses.
Then
both groups were given a selection of sweet treats. It turns out that those in
the exercise group had much lower cravings than those who did nothing. The
clear message is if you want to cut down on your cravings for sweet things, put
on your walking shoes.
Those
Little Purple Heartburn Pills Can Cause Big Bone Problems
Janice
Allen wants to play with her grandchildren again. Even if it's just taking them
to the park. But she's already fractured both feet, two ribs and an ankle --
and she's terrified of breaking another bone.
Susan
Poznanovich has broken both feet, too, and spends her days in "severe
pain."
They're
both part of a growing army of walking wounded -- women and men whose bones
snapped and shattered without notice.
All
after taking the "Purple Pill" to treat their stubborn heartburn.
Now
researchers are warning that more than 100 million other Americans who take
Nexium, Prilosec, Zegerid, Prevacid and other prescription or OTC heartburn drugs
may be at the same risk.
But
our government and billion-dollar drug companies have cooked up a scheme to
keep you in the dark. Researchers from the Forsyth Institute, one of the
top independent research organizations in America, are sounding the alarm.
Proton
pump inhibitors (PPIs) for heartburn increase your risk of sudden, severe bone
breaks by a shocking 34 percent.
The
very acids PPI drugs suppress allow our bodies to regulate the calcium in our
blood and transfer it to our bones. Block that acid, according to lead
researcher Dr. Ricardo Battaglino, and you're literally starving and weakening
your bones.
That
news may come as a shock to millions of PPI patients -- but drug makers and the
FDA have known about it for years. In fact, they worked together to keep it a
deep, dark secret.
You
see, the bad news about PPIs and fractures started rolling in years ago Stories
of shattered wrists, ankles and hips were so frightening the FDA required all
PPIs to carry a warning about possible fracture risks.
But
then, a short ten months later, Big Pharma got a special gift from the agency.
Giving
them a loophole the size of Saturn's rings, the FDA said that it had changed
its mind. Suddenly, all those OTC versions somehow magically became
"safe."
So,
how did Big Pharma pull that one off? The dosage is the same as prescription
drugs that still carry the warnings. In fact, Prilosec OTC at 20.6 mg is over
double the strength of the 10 mg prescription pill. And the OTC version is even
advertised as the "medicine equivalent" of the "leading
Rx."
It's
all because of the 14-day deception.
The
FDA ruled that as long as the OTC package says not to take the drug any longer
than two weeks, the fracture warnings are history.
Seriously!
Who takes these drugs for only two weeks?
Everyone
knows that people are popping these pills every...single...day, for years and
years on end. Even the Prilosec OTC commercial says to take "one pill each
morning."
But
as long as their packages keep saying to stop taking the pills after 14 days,
Big Pharma doesn't have to tell you a thing. And that 14-day deception may have
sentenced millions to shattered bones, agonizing pain, and lost independence.
In fact, here's just some of what we now know about PPIs and bone breaks:
- Using these drugs can increase
your risk of hip, wrist, foot and spine fractures.
- The risk increases the longer
you use them, with those taking them for one year or more at the greatest
risk.
- Taking a higher dose, even for
under a year, also increases the chance of a fracture.
- The danger also increases if
you have other risk factors for broken bones and are over 50.
Until
next time, stay healthy and happy
J.D.
Roma
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