Salt and other misconceptions

Today's post is inspired in some part by what people say to me.

A perfect example is dinner out last night. There were about eight or nine of us and I ordered grilled fish and steamed veggies, i.e. no added fat, butter, oil or sauce and a side salad. I had as much if not more volume of food as anyone at the table, but the least calories. The waitress asked why I was ordering this way when I was so "skinny". This was not the first time something like that has been said to me, and I always use it as a teaching point. Perhaps you already have an idea of how I respond to comments like these. I say, "oh, you have it backwards." "I look like this because of how I eat and exercise, it isn't natural or genetic, it is purposeful." People often want to think that a little person can eat whatever they want and which can excuse them from having to eat less and move more which can be hard seeming. Thin persons can of course have horrible blood work if they eat crap and do not exercise, but I in fact, have great blood work.

To say that all more simply, being of low weight is not necessarily an invitation to gluttony but a consequence of forgoing it.

Another thing that I do that sometimes gets a reaction is adding salt to my food. I have long known and said to people that not everyone has to avoid salt and that some people have worse outcomes than others because of salt intake. Knowing it and reporting it in my blog are a little different so I researched the issue somewhat today.

I feel and the research supports that hypertension in this country is very much a response to environmental change. This change is in food preparation. We have mass production of highly processed foods which have far more sodium than a body needs. As a population, we have consumed these foods in excess and have in aggregate, the consequence of a blood pressure problem so huge that policy was created to lower sodium content in foods and label clearly the amount of sodium in them.

Our Institute of Medicine has determined that 1500mg of sodium a day is the Adequate Intake (AI) for most people. People who are very active and or work in extreme heat would need more than that. There IS a need for sodium, it isn't like sugar which has no nutritive benefit.

Research has also determined that an Upper Limit (UL) of sodium should be 2400mg a day. This is a recommendation based on the overwhelming percent of Americans who get too much salt. There is no benefit to getting more than 1500 mg a day, so there is no harm in limiting everyone to 2400mg.

Interestingly, study after study has shown that the excess salt, over 1500 mg, is from foods in the control of manufacturers, not from our use of table salt. Of course, adding table salt to say, your McDonald's french fries, canned vegetables or TV dinner would be problematic and some people do indeed do that.

There are also groups of people who more so than others, respond adversely to salt intake over the 1500 mg. This includes people already hypertensive, especially those that do not respond to blood pressure lowering medications as well as black persons, people who were low birth weight babies, middle aged persons and persons with a genetic predisposition to renal problems.

Here is a startling little piece of research info. There is a multi year clinical research study in place now that is referred to as NHANES and in review of the data collected prior to 2004, 100 % of us, regardless of sex or race, exceed the AI of 1500mg a day.

Back to me. Well, for the most part I do not eat processed foods and I happen to be very active with out door sports and I live in Florida. I add table salt to my popcorn and some of my food. So ingrained and so good a message has been delivered that people will look at me with raised eye brows, and relatives may even say, "salt?! oh but salt is so bad." This is their way of finding holes in my (obsessive) healthy lifestyle.

I wonder what we have to do to get the general public to avoid saturated and trans fats and all that sugar and maybe to exercise more?!

Still to be clear, I am not saying that we do not have a problem with too much salt nor am I saying that salt doesn't impact blood pressure, only that a minority of us do not have to watch our salt intake as closely as others.

In my research I also read that potassium intake can offset some of the adverse consequences of too much salt.

One last misconception - water. There is no "8x8 glasses a day" as an official recommendation. Think about it, how could a 95 pound athlete a 120 pound couch potato and a 200 pound construction work all need the same amount of water every day?

I leave you with your pondering... and hey, "hold the salt!"