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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

#131

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. Your basal metabolic rate is not much different from the guy next to you of similar age and weight, barring some extremely rare circumstance. I don't know what to tell you, other than that. > Two people consuming the…

I was with you until the last sentence. I'm from a whole family of skinny people. We eat like horses, just to maintain our weight. Nobody gets even a little tummy bulge until they're 45 or 50. My middle son is currently 6'3" and 150 lbs and eats constantly, the highest-calorie foods available to him, as much as several other people. Always has. When in high school for an after-school snack we baked one frozen pizza f…

A counter example works only on an absolute statement. He didn't say literally ever skinny person met those criteria, rather:

>Not really. Those skinny people are eating less (in aggregate) than the fat people, again barring some very rare metabolic condition. Guaranteed.

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

#132
post #50

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. Do…

Oxford journal isn't your daytime television show.

For a med STUDENT you show quite a lot arrogance. You also misunderstand how studies works (All clinically treated hypertensive patients were excluded for a reason. Guess which?)

Can't believe you were upvoted since most of what you wrote is just self-serving and has absolutely no links with the study. (I read the original study too)

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

#133
post #50

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. Do…

I agree with you.

I trust Paul Bragg more than a biased health study.

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

#136
The results section of the paper has some possibly contradictory information:

1. "Salt intake was positively associated with SBP in men but not in women."

2. "Salt intake was not associated with SBP in either sex after multiple adjustments."

Also isn't this kind of journalism and article titles unethical? There should be some kind of regulatory board for articles in any media.

Anyone can write anything and can cause serious harm.

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

#137
post #112

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. Your basal metabolic rate is not much different from the guy next to you of similar age and weight, barring some extremely rare circumstance. I don't know what to tell you, other than that. > Two people consuming the…

You made a lot of confident assertions, but provided no evidence backing them up. And they seem to be wrong. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate#Causes_of_... to find actual measured differences. The #1 cause of differences in BMR is lean body mass. A body builder will therefore have a higher BMR than a fat guy of the same height and weight. Energy spent on short intense exercises that bu…

First of all, note that I absolutely agree that exercise will matter a lot. I don't agree that it will make a huge difference in BMR for someone who maintains similar weight though. What it will certainly do is simply burn lots of calories both through the exercise itself, and short term increase in metabolism, as well as increase your energy levels to a point where you may end up being more active outside of exercise too.

But about BMR: Lean body mass between two people of same height and weight can certainly make a difference, but people tends to overestimate how much of a difference it will make assuming weight stays relatively similar.

(Note that difference in lean body mass certainly can have very substantial effect when you ignore large differences in weight because that opens the door for much larger variations in lean body mass, but note that bronbron was explicitly talking about similar weight)

I'm an amateur power lifter. My lean body mass after abut 10 years of exercise is about 15kg higher than when I was pretty much the same weight but fat. If I'd stated lifting younger (I was about 30) or used steroids, or spent more time with a trainer early on learning the right way to train, I might have added substantially more, but people tend to overestimate how much muscle you can realistically add. My current weight and performance means I'm an advanced lifter, within the top 10% of gym goers easily.

I often see people think they need to add on huge amount of calories when they start exercising, but that's rarely true. My average calorie intake to maintain my weight including what I burn during 3+ intense weight sessions a week, at a weight of 106kg is about 2400. That is not estimated, but measured by tracking weight + intake in detail over periods of weeks. Subtract my exercise and some other activity, and that easily puts an upper bound on my BMR of 2000kcal/day, most likely more like 1800. A lot of kids freak out when they see those numbers, because they've looked at stories about steroid filled freaks of nature that eat 5000kcal+ a day and think you couldn't possibly add muscle at my intake...

Schwarzenegger during his career as a bodybuilder was about my current weight when competing several seasons (he was heavier when he was a power lifter), but he probably had another approx. 15kg of lean body mass where I still have excess fat (if only I could magically transform my stomach fat and shift it to my chest and arms..).

That pretty much bounds the lean body mass difference for someone at around my current weight to around 30kg. I'm sure you could find someone with less lean body mass than I had when I was untrained if you went looking for really sickly people, but I was weak; you couldn't find many with more than Arnold without bumping the body weight up)

It's fairly normal to estimate about 12kcal per kg of extra lean body mass. The difference between untrained me 10 years ago and trained me today then adds up to only about 180kcal. And between untrained me 10 years ago and Arnold, about 360kcal/day.

Of course that's not nothing - 360kcal is a small/medium meal if you're careful. But very few find themselves towards the top of that range, so a difference that large at the same weight is likely not common (I was totally untrained and extremely sedentary when I started training), and if you do, your exercise will tend to dwarf the difference in basal metabolic rate. E.g. one of my workouts burns in the 500kcal range; I end up burning about 200kcal more per day on average. A top level bodybuilder will spend 3-5 times as long in the gym as me every week, maybe more (and on top of that, you are highly unlikely to get remotely close to Arnold level physique without steroids). But note also that this is before secondary effects: When I exercise, I am generally more active outside of the gym because I feel more energetic. I'll be more inclined to walk to/from the train station instead of taking the bus, or take a walk during lunch hour.

You can certainly find "mass monsters" amongst steroid using body builders today that have lean body mass way above that (e.g. Ronnie Coleman), but they are few and far between, and again the amount of exercise you'd put in makes the BMR relatively irrelevant.

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

#138

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…

Hm, this chart shows average weight dropping as people get older.

http://www.halls.md/chart/men-weight-w.htm

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

#139
post #50

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. Do…

Hey doc-to-be: Am I correct that there is a very basic cellular bio reason that salt causes vasoconstriction? No one is questioning this?

Salt doesn't cause vasoconstriction (constriction of blood vessels). That's not really in dispute. It's whether increased salt intake leads to increase blood pressure. The theory behind this is that increases salt in the vascular spaces will draw in more fluid volume through osmotic pressure, which results in higher blood pressure.

The problem is there's a lot more going on in the body than basic hydrostatic forces and in general the body is pretty good at maintaining homeostasis in the face of external perturbation. As one, very relevant example, the kidneys are constantly excreting both salt and fluid in opposition to various changes in blood pressure and chemistry.

We know there are patients who are sensitive to salt in their diets. Particularly those with decreased kidney function. This and some other studies are asking the question whether increased salt intake in otherwise healthy individuals leads to an increase in blood pressure. So far the answer seems to be a resounding ...maybe.

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

#140
post #50

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. Do…

1) In trying to find out if, generically, there is a causal effect between salt intake and blood pressure, it is sensible to select a healthy population. The hypothesis being tested is "In good working condition, the human body maintains correct NaCl levels". You do not want to test people with faulty metabolism, because they are outside the scope. 2) See explanation in number 1. 3) I have not read the original paper…

I almost completely agree with this comment. I should have been more clear - my gripe is not so much with the study but with its interpretation by Time.

The study may have its own problems, but draws a conclusion I agree with, that the relationship between salt and blood pressure in healthy people may be overstated.

As for your point 3: I disagree. I think the news article makes a case that salt and blood pressure have no relationship, which isn't true. It is only true if, almost by definition, your salt / water regulation system is healthy.

Your point about maintaining NaCl levels is probably roughly correct, though I don't think it has been demonstrated per se.

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