Salt 2- Confusion

There was a great piece published in TIME magazine this week regarding salt.  It discussed a controversial study that suggested that sodium reduction may not be as important as once thought.  The piece in TIME also referenced a boldly written article in Scientific American titled, "It's Time to End the War on Salt: the zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science"

There's quite a bit of confusion and as discussed in the articles referenced above, there are many scientific papers that ping-pong back and forth debating the influence of salt on overall health.  Nearly all of these studies look at salt's influence on hypertension; a very well-described risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

If you read enough of these types of stories, you realize that ultimately, the conclusion is, "We don't know enough.  We have some ideas but need further research to see what bears out."  The interpreted message for some is, "Therefore, we will eat as much salt as we want since science can't prove that salt is bad."

I hate to 'cut and paste' but this last paragraph from the TIME piece is great:

In the end then, there may be no simple answers. Researchers and public health officials who support population-wide efforts to curb sodium intake have a vast body of evidence to support their point of view. For decades now, they can say, we have seen studies that suggest — but, yes, they only suggest — that salt is deadly. And those who don't support efforts to curb salt consumption can claim, often correctly, that the evidence against salt is merely suggestive.

In other words, you can interpret this particular body of science to support your views and frankly, no one can prove you wrong at this point.  While the policy wonks can have a field day debating both sides of this, where does that leave the average consumer?

So as a person who advocates for the average consumer (I am not a policy maker and have no relationship to any food companies), I'll tell you that frankly, you should eat less salt.  There is enough evidence from a physiological perspective that tells us that too much salt is bad.  Bad enough to kill you?  Maybe not- in and of itself. But certainly bad enough to contribute to several vicious cycles of physiological demise that can be very difficult to break.  

We'll explore.  But the science combined with a healthy dose of common sense will show us that we take in too much salt and that is bad. 

Salt 1- Easy Does It

Everyone has heard the concerns over salt. The health community has generally recommended that daily salt intake be restricted to 1500mg.   This is enough to cover all of our basic needs for sodium. The USDA states that even if we exceed that amount, we really should not go any higher than 2300mg daily (tolerable upper limit);  this is about 1 teaspoon of salt.   The average American consumes 3,436 mg of salt a day with the vast majority consumed through processed foods or restaurant foods. 

To give you some sense of what these numbers mean:

• 1 Big Mac and medium fries alone contain 1310 mg of sodium.
• Two slices of Pizza Hut's pepperoni pizza have 1220 mg
• 6 inch turkey sandwich at Subway has 810mg of sodium.
• One Footlong Italian Sub at Subway has a whopping 3,440 mg of sodium!   That's more than twice the sodium we need in an entire day! 

It's probably an understatement to say the American's consume too much salt.  In fact, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that thousands of lives could be saved each year if we simply cut down our salt consumption.

In the next few posts, we'll take a look at salt and whether there's enough evidence to scare us away from that shaker.

Reversing diabetes

Sorry for the long delay between posts.  This article was really encouraging and I wanted to share with you all.  Nearly 26 million Americans have diabetes with the vast majority of those people having type 2.  Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance.  Once insulin resistance kicks in, there is a domino effect of physiological demise.  Bad stuff happens; very bad.  

The nice part about type 2 diabetes is that is 100% manageable.  Some diseases are very difficult to treat; diabetes is not one of them.  In fact, you could even argue that up to a certain point, diabetes (type 2) is curable! That's what these researchers found.  It was a very small sample size, but the results are not only encouraging but somewhat predictable.

Eleven volunteers were newly diagnosed diabetics.  After following a 600 calorie per day diet for 8 weeks, there disease disappeared!  Blood sugar levels returned to normal and the pancreas improved its appearance and function.  Three months after the study was completed, 7 out of 11 were still diabetes free.

There are 2 ways to look at this.  First, you could say that eating a 600 calorie per day diet is not realistic in the long run.  The participants in this study consumed nothing but liquid drinks and non-starchy vegetables.  It doesn't seem like a lot of fun so may have little application for real people in the long run.  Who wants to live like that forever?

The other way to look at it (and the preferred way), is to understand that you can reverse early diabetes.  While this study doesn't directly say the following, I would argue that even in severe diabetes, you can make the disease regress and dramatically improve the functioning of your body.  Eat well.  Food has enormous potential to heal you.  

What would happen on a less restrictive diet coupled with regular walking?  What about a 1200 calorie per day diet with a regular yoga class?  1400 calorie per day diet with resistance exercise and yoga together?  The possibilities are endless.

You don't need to be on a liquid diet with lettuce and broccoli alone.  You can eat tons of veggie and reasonable amounts of other real foods and still have the same effect.  Perhaps it will be 9 weeks rather than the 8 weeks of this study.  Perhaps it will take 4 months?  But you will move in the right direction.  That is a guarantee.