No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

The science is conflicted over a simple question of fact -- whether or not a trivially measurable short-term effect occurs when you eat one of the most common food additives in the world.

If we can't even answer THIS -- it seems like it should be incredibly easy to answer -- I don't see why people can claim anything at all about diets and macronutrients.

Nutrition science needs a fundamental breakthrough and I don't know where it's going to come from but I desperately hope it happens quickly. Because a lot of people are suffering and dying of poor nutrition and we don't know basic things about what's good and bad for us.

Errr, I think we know these 'basic' things quite fine. Energy burned needs to be >= energy taken in. It's just complicated for other reasons.

There are a lot of incentives to stay unhealthy. There're the biological incentives (eating a shitload and packing on a few pounds is good if you're in the jungle and might not eat again for a few weeks), and the incredible cultural pressures that prey on those biological incentives (taco bell spends a lot of money to encourage you to make bad health decisions).

Salt, cholesterol, fat, carbs - these are distractions from being healthy. People who eat healthy amounts of reasonable food (although even then, there's that guy who ate twinkies for a year and managed to lose weight by keeping his calories in check) rarely suffer from poor nutrition.

Yeah, everyone knows that guy who was a vegan and ran every day for 40 years and keeled over at 45 from a heart problem. He's the exception.

> Neither of which have any direct or consistent correlation to physical activity or food consumed.

is almost always bullshit. People who truthfully track their calories and err on the side of caution (did I eat 1 cup of yogurt or 1.5?) rarely end up surprised.

Sure, some people have thyroid conditions. If you do, you're the minority and you should get it treated. Otherwise, your body is pretty much the same as everyone else's with respect to metabolic rates (when age is factored in).

Maintaining a healthy weight is the primary health problem for the vast majority of people concerned about their personal nutrition.

It's Great! Oops, No It Isn't: Why Clinical Research Can't Guarantee The Right Medical Answers

"The truth is, few people know the first thing about clinical research. The public reads about a medical research project that announces unbelievable results for a miraculous drug. Some years later, another investigation completely wipes out those initial favorable findings. Hormones Cut Women’s Risk of Heart Disease (San Francisco Chronicle, 1994) Hormones Don’t Protect Women from Heart Disease, Study Says (Washington Post, 2001) The people are confused because we do not understand the process behind these conflicting results. Our health, and in fact, our very lives are dependent on clinical trials, but we know little about them. This book explains the issues the public needs to be aware of when it comes to clinical research. It uncovers the problems in medical investigations that can not be overcome no matter how much care and diligence medical researchers bring to a research project. The basic premise that drives the writing is that it is impossible for medical researchers to guarantee that they can get all the right answers from a single study. No matter how good the investigators are, no matter how well a study is planned, no matter how carefully the plans are executed and no matter how conscientiously the results are analyzed and interpreted – the answer may still be wrong. The deck is stacked against medical researchers and the public – you – should be skeptical of the results no matter how impressive they seem on the surface."