Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study • Hacker News Board

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#201

Post by rwnspace » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #183

rwnspace wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good job Popper's falsifiability is flawed then; else evolution is not science.

> It does appear that some people think that I denied scientific character to the historical sciences, such as palaeontology, or the history of the evolution of life on Earth. This is a mistake, and I here wish to affirm that these and other historical sciences have in my opinion scientific character; their hypotheses can in many cases be tested. [Popper, 1981] Certain things like 'carbon dating' are certainly scient…

Agreed, it is useful, certainly. But it's not to be wielded without subtlety: notably in your quote the use of 'imo' and 'in many cases'. Anyway, apologies for the terseness. My gripe is just when it is used as a magic omnibullet in discussions about 'what is science?'.

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#202

Post by cies » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #199

cies wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our bodies are designed to consume ready to use nutrients and more importantly pre-processed nutrients I find it hard to believe that we are designed to do something that we have later "designed" ourselves. I see cooking as a survival strategy, by which we have grown our habitat by a lot. I look at man as a tropical being, its the only place I can survive without cloths. In the tropics there is also fruits that man…

We are designed that way - we have the largest small intestine of all apes, and i think it's also one of the largest (ratio wise) if not the largest of all omnivore mammals. Comparison with apes: https://carta.anthropogeny.org/moca/topics/smalllarge-intest... We didn't invent cooking there are good indications that our ancestors cooked food as early as 2m years ago, and cooking here is defined as chemical alteration…

> How and what we eat is a the very core reason to why we are considerably more developed than the rest of our ape cibilings, and that is a very important fact to remember.

Thanks again. Why I agree, I also the the opposite. An sick and obese population. I see similarities with other animals that we feed (ie dogs). Humans and dogs are often in bad health at the end of our lives, while apes and wolves are doing well...

What do you think of this? BTW how did you get into this field, own interest (like me) or some formal studies?

(we're running out of replies, I may reply in some other way if you do not mind)

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#203

Post by ivraatiems » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

rapsey wrote: post #158

j88439h84 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your criteria?

They are all cargo cult sciences. Fields dominated by theories entirely unproven because they are practically unprovable. Those theories remain even after they are often demonstratably wrong. Look up replication crisis.

I don't buy your premise, but supposing I did, what alternative do you propose? The purpose of social science is to understand human society. Do you have some concept of a way to do that which you feel would be more clearly accurate or scientific than what's currently done?

Bear in mind that the 'hard' sciences use theories which are partially or wholly incorrect, too; we still use Newtonian physics in many cases because they're easier to use as a model, even if they don't capture everything.

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#204

Post by jschwartzi » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #109

jschwartzi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've hiked with people on low-salt diets and they've never failed to get a hyponatremia headache that gets better when they drink some electrolyte(salt). Frankly it doesn't make any sense to me to take an intervention that's good for high blood pressure and unilaterally try to apply it to perfectly healthy people. They did that with fat too and look where we are.

Sodium causes high blood pressure. Electrolyte drinks don't contain sodium but magnesium (and some other salts) if i remember correctly.

Sodium in isolation might cause high blood pressure in certain people depending on the proportion of water and other electrolytes in their diet. Your body excretes water, sodium, and other electrolytes in proportion to maintain osmotic pressure within the cell and in the intracellular spaces. This is handled by the kidneys.

If you over-consume any one electrolyte or water compared to a baseline osmotic pressure may increase or decrease until the body compensates. This is from the article.

I'm not a doctor but I've taken some first aid classes where electrolyte and dehydration were covered in the context of hiking and backpacking. It's also possible to drain your body of electrolytes by sweating, because again the electrolytes must be present in proportion to the water and sweat contains electrolyte because the glands need the proper osmotic pressure to induct water. You may also drain electrolyte into your intestine because the body also needs the water to have the proper osmotic pressure to absorb it in the first place. This is why Oral Rehydration Salts have table and other salts in them.

The body is extremely complicated, and I'm always very suspicious when someone tells me that "X causes X" without explaining the mechanism of action or the caveats. Every body is different and the same body in different situations will require different treatments. Complex dynamical systems frequently exhibit chaotic behavior. Chaotic systems have the feature that taking the same intervention and applying it at slightly different points in the system's evolution can produce wildly different sequences of further evolution.

I hope that one day nutritional science will have advanced to the point where this is understood and expected during study design. But until that happens it's hard for me to believe many nutritional studies.

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#205

Post by xzel » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #180

xzel wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just plain categorically wrong. All primates DO NOT eat high carb diets. Its not both just an over generalization because each species of primate have different diets (as well as regional diets) but many of them will eat nuts, meat, berries and other things. See dogma1138's child post to this parent as well as his other responses to cies other posts in this thread. No offense cies but your posts here reek of…

> but many of them will eat nuts, meat, berries and other things. Eating some "nuts, meat" does not make it HFLC. Do you know what consitutes HCLF? Well name me one type of primate that does not eat HCLF in the wild and you may correct me. But so far you have not. > No offense cies but your posts here reek of soccer-mom-esque health blog level of basic research and espousing of ideas as facts. No offense taken. We're…

What? You said generally this is what is true; generally, it is not true. That is all I'm saying. You're generalization is wrong on a factual level. Continuing, dogma1138 has done plenty to discuss differences between human and primate digestion and primate diets.

I'm not interested in reading back-alley nutritionist blogs to discover what HCLF is (that is basically all that came up on google, Vegan or LDS sites). You want to link to a research paper discussing it I'm happy to hear about it.

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#206

Post by dogma1138 » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #202

dogma1138 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are designed that way - we have the largest small intestine of all apes, and i think it's also one of the largest (ratio wise) if not the largest of all omnivore mammals. Comparison with apes: https://carta.anthropogeny.org/moca/topics/smalllarge-intest... We didn't invent cooking there are good indications that our ancestors cooked food as early as 2m years ago, and cooking here is defined as chemical alteration…

> How and what we eat is a the very core reason to why we are considerably more developed than the rest of our ape cibilings, and that is a very important fact to remember. Thanks again. Why I agree, I also the the opposite. An sick and obese population. I see similarities with other animals that we feed (ie dogs). Humans and dogs are often in bad health at the end of our lives, while apes and wolves are doing well..…

The population can get sick and obese and not die because we are not in the wilderness apes and wolves don’t have that great of a time they die the moment they become even remotely unfit.

For most apes in captivity the life expectancy is nearly 50% greater than those in the wild even those who are in reservations, for some it’s duble or more.

You will not find gorillas older than 30-35 years in the wild those in captivity live up to 50-60.

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#207

Post by goldenkey » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

rhapsodic wrote: post #114

goldenkey wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salt really only tastes good when you need salt. It's satiation depends on the body's current levels/needs.

>Salt really only tastes good when you need salt. It's satiation depends on the body's current levels/needs. So people who scarf down potato chips by the bag are low on salt?

They are eating more than just salt..the fat and carbohydrates in the chips. But yes, people will eat saltier foods more often if they are lacking in salt. There is literally a craving.

"A number of hormonal, central nervous, and behavioral systems are engaged when an animal is truly deficient in sodium, which motivates it to search for sodium salts, avidly consume them based on their salt taste, and thereby restore sodium balance" [1]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2491403/

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#208

Post by gremlinsinc » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 11:30 PM UTC

3x wrote: post #160

barking wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WFPB, whole food plant based diet. No meat, no fish, no dairy. You can eat fruit but you can't juice it. Seems a bit of a misery diet to me.

Eating fresh vegetables and fruits all day is glorious, not miserable. Foods like legumes, seitan, tempeh, tofu, nuts, and mushrooms are all excellent sources of protein and can even be made to taste very similar to meat. Since I stopped eating meat there are a few tastes that I'll miss like bluefin tuna, soft-shell crabs, etc. but overall it's not difficult.

Not eating steak, brisket, bacon, pork, etc....is definitely misery... esp. a good smoked brisket with good marbling...

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#209

Post by DougMerritt » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

mercer wrote: post #152

rossdavidh wrote: post #129

Whenever I hear discussion of whether we should defer to the judgement of scientists, I always want to ask, which field of science do you mean? In some, like physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, geology, there is still much to be learned but what we have so far is pretty solid. You don't hear about the basics (matter is made of atoms, species emerge from natural selection, plate tectonics) getting overturned. Th…

Can you elaborate on the 'pile of mud' fundamentals of economics? I've always been inclined to agree, but then I consider my biases in this regard, but also my own field, psychology, and pause. If you subdivide 'science' into various fields, psychology is definitely on much shakier grounds than has often ben assumed. But if you subdivide 'psychology', the picture isn't as clear. I'd say marketing and the broader fiel…

People are very prejudiced against economics because economists don't predict well and have contradictory policy recommendations, but the basis of economics is quite solid.

(My favorite illustration: if there were no underlying laws to economics, then dictators would just issue edicts about currency and markets which would then just plain work rather than causing havoc -- and yet dictators very much suffer side effects of their dictates.)

This is very similar to weather prediction, which in some geographical areas is very untrustworthy, but not because its scientific foundation is lacking.

Psychology has subareas that are very rigorous and evidence based, but also major foundational areas that remain essentially speculative/opinion-based (what is mind/consciousness/free will?)

Evolutionary psychology is again firmly rooted, but is most famous for its speculative and unproven areas.

Marketing and persuasion/propaganda have subareas that incorporate statistics and/or psychology and/or sociology etc., but are not themselves actually sciences at all, so that's very much apples and oranges.

Re: Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study

#210

Post by DougMerritt » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 11:58 PM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #100

barking wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there was the 6 glasses of water a day that became dogma but had no basis.

It was based on a misunderstanding: People need the equivalent of 6 glasses of water a day, but a large chunk of that comes in through food and drink you already have. For most, adding one or two glasses of water a day would put you up at the goal. That said, I don't recall where the target number came from.

They need no such thing. The target number (usually quoted as 8) is pure folk mythology, there never was a study that concluded that that was the right number for some medical/biological reason. This has been in the news.

The correct number depends on individual, weather, activity level, etc. The actual medical recommendation is merely that healthy people should pay attention to their thirst and drink when thirsty, and plan ahead for exertion and desert excursions etc.

Certainly some people don't pay attention to their own thirst, but that's not to say that 6 or 8 are the correct numbers. That may be too much or too little.