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No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

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Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#41

Post by tedunangst »

tmod wrote: post #10
lincolnq wrote: post #2

The state of nutrition science is pathetic. 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 n…

I'd recommend this book by Ronald Gaucho 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…

I've decided to eat eggs every other day, to balance out the reports that they're good and bad.

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#42

Post by Sophistifunk »

huherto wrote: post #34
superuser2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that energy burned is not by any means a 1:1 correlation with exercised performed. We are inefficient machines, and our efficiency characteristics vary wildly in ways we don't fully understand. Two people consuming the same quantity of energy and exerting the same number of joules on exercise equipment do not see identical or even necessarily related physiological effects. There are many, many factors - other…

Something that has always bother me is why poo is not part of the equation. Do feces have no calories ?

Yes. And the efficiency of "food calories - shit calories" varies wildly between individuals and across time for individuals. The number of calories you see in a food database is calculated based on how well a few macronutrients literally burn in a lab setting. All it tells us is a way to compare input values, not usage or output.

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#43

Post by calvinbhai »

This article is BS. I mean, its a FUD advertorial.

I say that based on my personal experience:

A nurse in the clinic checked my BP (as a routine) when I went to get checked for some eye infection. And she was shocked that it was 170/100 (normal is 120/80).

It was shocking for her (and of course me) because: I was 25 I looked healthy and lean (not too thin). I showed/experienced no signs of hyper tension.

My eating habits, was to go on a Frozen Prepared Food diet (for lunch and dinner) because that was the cheapest tasty food I could afford along with cereals for breakfast, for about 3 months before my BP was checked.

I dropped this diet since that day, reduced salt intake considerably. And it took about 9 months for my BP to come down to normal levels, without any medication, and with a little extra exercising.

I'd have taken this article with a pinch of salt. But, I have cut down on salt intake. So I prefer to not take it :)

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#44

Post by Dylan16807 »

bronbron wrote: post #17
tbrownaw wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errr, I think we know these 'basic' things quite fine. Energy burned needs to be >= energy taken in. Very long term, energy burned will be == energy taken in. If that's consistently out of balance by... say 100 Kcal/day, that's 0.2 lb/week every week or 10 lb/year or 100 lb/decade. How many 50-year-olds do you know who are 300 pounds heavier (or lighter) than they were at 20?

> Very long term, energy burned will be == energy taken in. Not really, unless we're counting death. Most people gain weight as they get older. > If that's consistently out of balance by... say 100 Kcal/day, that's 0.2 lb/week every week or 10 lb/year or 100 lb/decade. How many 50-year-olds do you know who are 300 pounds heavier (or lighter) than they were at 20? You're phrasing that the wrong way. Your BMR changes d…

>If you weigh 180 pounds at 20 and you eat 2700 calories a day, eventually you'll reach a point where 2700 calories is what you require to maintain your body weight

You're agreeing with the post then, that very long term it's pretty even.

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#45

Post by jasallen »

calvinbhai wrote: post #43

This article is BS. I mean, its a FUD advertorial. I say that based on my personal experience: A nurse in the clinic checked my BP (as a routine) when I went to get checked for some eye infection. And she was shocked that it was 170/100 (normal is 120/80). It was shocking for her (and of course me) because: I was 25 I looked healthy and lean (not too thin). I showed/experienced no signs of hyper tension. My eating ha…

Which is why for so long people believed that salt was the cause. But in your situation salt is also a proxy for a lot of other things that were wrong with your diet. Gobs of processes carbs, no 'good' cholesterol, a lack of protein, just to get started.

Since anything that cuts processed salt considerably almost assuredly improves those other metrics, I'm not sure why you believe your anecdotal evidence is so convincing.

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#46

Post by bronbron »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #44
bronbron wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very long term, energy burned will be == energy taken in. Not really, unless we're counting death. Most people gain weight as they get older. > If that's consistently out of balance by... say 100 Kcal/day, that's 0.2 lb/week every week or 10 lb/year or 100 lb/decade. How many 50-year-olds do you know who are 300 pounds heavier (or lighter) than they were at 20? You're phrasing that the wrong way. Your BMR changes d…

>If you weigh 180 pounds at 20 and you eat 2700 calories a day, eventually you'll reach a point where 2700 calories is what you require to maintain your body weight You're agreeing with the post then, that very long term it's pretty even.

Oh, sure, after reading your post I think I see what that post was getting it. I didn't originally.

Originally I thought the poster meant "it can't be that simple because otherwise everyone would be 500 pounds", but yes, over time it does become true.

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#47

Post by DigitalJack »

tedunangst wrote: post #41
tmod wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend this book by Ronald Gaucho 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…

I've decided to eat eggs every other day, to balance out the reports that they're good and bad.

But do you eat the big endian first? Or the little endian?

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#48

Post by upofadown »

calvinbhai wrote: post #43

This article is BS. I mean, its a FUD advertorial. I say that based on my personal experience: A nurse in the clinic checked my BP (as a routine) when I went to get checked for some eye infection. And she was shocked that it was 170/100 (normal is 120/80). It was shocking for her (and of course me) because: I was 25 I looked healthy and lean (not too thin). I showed/experienced no signs of hyper tension. My eating ha…

It is well known that restricting salt intake can reduce blood pressure. This is a different question: does high salt intake cause high blood pressure?

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#49

Post by jasallen »

eitally wrote: post #40
montecarl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the general philosophy behind what you are saying. It has a nice ring to it. But saying to eat a well-rounded diet is not advice. Nobody has any good idea what a well rounded diet is. You must eat fat (to obtain essential fatty acids). You must eat protein (to obtain essential amino acids). There are certain vitamins you must eat. And there are certain elements that you must consume. The real question i…

It's pretty good, but not as good as it could be. There's no disputing the fact that we're better off if most of our carb macros don't come from refined flours and sugars, that we shouldn't eat trans-fats, and that we should eat a lot more fresh produce than most people do. I like Michael Pollan's often quoted statment: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Should have stopped at "Eat food. Not too much." Mostly plants is fine, but so is mostly lean meat and some plants.

Re: No Association Between Salt And Blood Pressure, Study Finds

#50

Post by svsaraf »

I'm a medical student who actually read the paper this article refers to. I would be very careful trying to draw conclusions from a study like this. I don't think many people in the healthcare community would be very surprised by it.

1) All clinically treated hypertensive patients were excluded - that means if you have kidney or vascular disease (hypertension) and are being treated for it, you aren't counted here. Doctors WILL care about your salt intake if you have these conditions, as they should! It is very common to prescribe something called the DASH diet to lower sodium intake and increase potassium intake.

2) If you're healthy, it means your kidneys are healthy (simplifying). One of the purposes of the kidneys is to maintain homeostatic blood pressure by excreting a combination of salt and water. To put it simply, if you eat a huge load of NaCl, say in a dominoes pizza, your blood pressure WILL NOT be affected for a very long time. I'd guess 20 minutes or so after the salt enters your bloodstream. Which means these folks can't measure that blood pressure change by testing blood pressure yearly.

3) Either medical doctors or the press that listens to them have a nasty habit of taking treatments that often work for very sick people - morbidly obese, type 1 diabetics, bed-ridden centenarians - and applying it to normal healthy folks. I will go out on a limb and say that these unilateral recommendations are almost all BS, and should be ignored. If you're healthy: eating eggs will not affect your cholesterol, eating cheesecake will not give you diabetes, sitting in a chair will not misalign your spine. It would be prudent for you to be skeptical when you hear these claims, often on daytime television or on the internet.

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