Does Salt Really Cause Heart Disease? By Dr. Mercola. Salt has long been a treasured food staple. Far from being harmful, high- quality salt is actually essential for life, but in the United States and many other developed countries salt has been vilified as a primary cause of high blood pressure and heart disease. According to preliminary research presented at an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans on March 2. This includes sodium intake from commercially available table salt and sodium found in processed foods and soy sauce. How much protein should you eat and which foods really pack a punch? Find out how to get all the protein you need and when to up your intake. Protein is an. Just what I had thought, so pleased that I am normal, all my bloods are normal, I eat a healthy diet and took myself off statins, my cholesterol was 7.8. According to the researchers, 4. Sixty percent of the deaths were in men; 4. To reach these conclusions, the researchers analyzed 2. From these, they tried to determine how the various salt intakes affected cardiovascular disease risks. The ideal salt intake was determined to be less than 1,0. Kazakhstan had the highest average salt intake at 6,0. Kenya and Malawi had the lowest average intake at about 2,0. Other salty regions included Central Asia, with an average of 5,5. Asia- Pacific area, averaging 5,0. East Asia at 4,8. According to the featured article: 2. In the U. S., the average intake was about 3,6. A National Osteoporosis Society survey. Salt has long been a treasured food staple. Far from being harmful, high-quality salt is actually essential for life, but in the United States and. Young people are being warned that faddy diets are putting their health at risk. The National Osteoporosis Society found that a fifth of under-25s were cutting out or. While the World Health Organization recommends sodium intake of fewer than 2,0. Salt is actually a nutritional goldmine, provided you consume the right kind, and maintain a proper salt- to- potassium ratio, which I'll discuss in a moment. Unfortunately, modern table salt has very little in common with natural, unrefined salt. Salt provides two elements – sodium and chloride – that are essential for life. Your body cannot make these elements on its own, so you must get them from your diet. Some of the many biological processes for which natural salt is crucial include: Being a major component of your blood plasma, lymphatic fluid, extracellular fluid, and even amniotic fluid. Carrying nutrients into and out of your cells, and helping maintain your acid- base balance. Increasing the glial cells in your brain, which are responsible for creative thinking and long- term planning. Both sodium and chloride are also necessary for the firing of neurons. Maintain and regulate blood pressure. Helping your brain communicate with your muscles, so that you can move on demand via sodium- potassium ion exchange. Supporting the function of your adrenal glands, which produce dozens of vital hormones. However, not all salts are created equal. The 5:2 diet became popular in late 2012 following a documentary by BBC journalist Michael Mosley. It advocates intermittent fasting – for two non. Perfect Diet - Perfect Nutrition. Preventing Osteoporosis, Bone Loss, Hip Fractures, and Degenerative Disc Disease. Click here to see Recommended Books. Stanozolol, sold under the brand names Winstrol and Stromba among others, is a synthetic anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) which was derived from dihydrotestosterone. Natural salt contains 8. Processed (table) salt, on the other hand, contains 9. These are dangerous chemicals like ferrocyanide and aluminosilicate. A small amount of iodine may also be added. Some European countries, where water fluoridation is not practiced, also add fluoride to their salt. In France for example, 3. South America. Besides these basic differences in nutritional content, the processing—which involve drying the salt above 1,2. Fahrenheit—also radically alters the chemical structure of the salt. So, while you definitely need salt for optimal health, not just any salt will do. Bbc Osteoporosis Diet SodaBbc Osteoporosis Diet MenuWhat your body needs is natural, unprocessed salt, without added chemicals. Does Salt Really Cause Heart Disease? Overindulgence in the typically used commercially processed table salt can lead to fluid retention, high blood pressure, swelling of your limbs, and shortness of breath. In the long term, it is thought to contribute to high blood pressure, kidney and heart disease, heart attacks, and heart failure. However, compelling evidence suggests that while processed salt can indeed cause fluid retention and related health problems, numerous studies have, overall, refuted the salt- heart disease connection. For example, a 2. NO strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death. In fact, salt restriction actually increased the risk of death in those with heart failure. Similarly, research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that same year revealed that the less sodium excreted in your urine (a marker of salt consumption), the greater the risk of dying from heart disease. This study followed 3,6. Europeans for eight years. The participants were divided into three groups: low salt, moderate salt, and high salt consumption. Researchers tracked mortality rates for the three groups, with the following results: Low- salt group: 5. Moderate salt group: 2. High- salt group: 1. The risk for heart disease was 5. Some studies have shown a modest benefit to salt restriction among some people with high blood pressure, but the evidence does not extend to the rest of the population. So what's really going on? Well, there are at least three factors that need to be taken into consideration. First, an ingredient that contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease across the board is fructose, and since so much of salt intake comes from processed foods, it's easy to see how the lines of causation may get blurred. Virtually all processed foods are high not just in sodium, but also fructose, particularly in processed foods sold in the US. Another factor is that there's a huge difference between natural salt and the processed salt added to processed foods and salt shakers in most homes and restaurants. The former is essential for good health, whereas the latter is best avoided altogether. A third factor that can have a significant impact on whether salt will harm or aid your health is the ratio between the salt and potassium in your diet. That said, it's clear that many are consuming far too much processed table salt and not enough natural salt. This begins early. According to the featured article, nearly 7. Some toddler fare contains as much as 6. American Heart Association for adults. Lead researcher Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, MPH told Med. Page. Today: 6. If voluntary agreements are not enough, taxation or restrictions on amounts of sodium should be implemented.'. Imbalance in this ratio can not only lead to hypertension (high blood pressure) but also contribute to a number of other diseases, including those highlighted in the featured research, along with a few others: Heart disease and stroke Memory decline Osteoporosis Ulcers and stomach cancer Kidney stones Cataracts Erectile dysfunction Rheumatoid arthritis The easiest way to achieve this imbalance is by consuming a diet of processed foods, which are notoriously low in potassium while high in sodium. It's possible that potassium deficiency may be more responsible for hypertension than excess sodium. Potassium deficiency leads to electrolyte imbalance, and can result in a condition called hypokalemia. Symptoms include: Water retention Raised blood pressure and hypertension Heart irregularities/arrhythmias Muscular weakness and muscle cramps Continual thirst and constipation According to a 1. The New England Journal of Medicine, titled . This equates to nearly 1. Compare that to the Standard American Diet where daily potassium consumption averages about 2,5. RDA is 4,7. 00 mg/day), along with 3,6. As mentioned earlier, if you eat a diet of processed foods, you can be virtually guaranteed that your potassium- sodium ratio is upside- down. This may also explain why high- sodium diets appear to affect some people but not others. According to a 2. The research, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine,8 was one of the first and largest US studies to evaluate the relationship of salt, potassium and heart disease deaths. According to Dr. Elena Kuklina, one of the lead authors of the study at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), potassium may neutralize the heart- damaging effects of salt. Tellingly, those who ate a lot of salt and very little potassium were more than twice as likely to die from a heart attack as those who ate about equal amounts of both nutrients. How Can You Ensure Proper Sodium- to- Potassium Ratio? So, how do you ensure you get these two important nutrients in more appropriate ratios? First, ditch all processed foods, which are very high in processed salt and low in potassium and other essential nutrients. Eat a diet of whole, unprocessed foods, ideally organically and locally- grown to ensure optimal nutrient content. This type of diet will naturally provide much larger amounts of potassium in relation to sodium. I do not recommend taking potassium supplements to correct a sodium- potassium imbalance. Instead, it is best to simply alter your diet and incorporate more potassium- rich whole foods. Green vegetable juicing is an excellent way to ensure you're getting enough nutrients for optimal health, including about 3. By removing the fiber you can consume even larger volumes of important naturally occurring potassium. Some additional rich sources in potassium are: Lima beans (9. Winter squash (8. Cooked spinach (8. Avocado (5. 00 mg per medium) Other potassium- rich fruits and vegetables include: Fruits: papayas, prunes, cantaloupe, and bananas. It is an old wives tale that you are getting loads of potassium from bananas, the potassium is twice as high in green vegetables) Vegetables: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, avocados, asparagus, and pumpkin Putting Salt Consumption into Proper Context. More than 8. 0 percent of the salt most people consume is from processed foods. Indeed, there is far too much sodium in processed foods. But you shouldn't be eating those foods anyway—sodium is just one of MANY ingredients in packaged foods that will adversely affect your health. The salt added to these convenience foods is bleached out, trace mineral deficient and mostly sodium—as opposed to natural salt, which is much lower in sodium and contains a myriad of other critical trace minerals. Himalayan salt, for example, contains about 8. Natural salt has flavor, over and above just salty taste. The more you can move toward a diet of whole organic foods in their natural state, the healthier you'll be—whether it's veggies, meat, dairy products, or salt. And increasing your vegetable intake will help insure you're getting the ideal ratio of sodium- to- potassium, which may be more crucial for overall health than we currently imagine.
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