Finally, a discussion on "salt research" albeit in the blogosphere, not the Dietary Guidelines committee
A former National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute employee, DebbieN, blogging on Slow Food Fast , showed her true colors earlier with her "Salt Rant" post. She has now opened a discussion about the science underlying her former agency's support for universal sodium reduction.
DebbieN's post "Misunderstanding Salt Research: Bon Appetit's Shamfeul 'Health Wise' column" yesterday doesn't fully avoid the name-calling and attempted intimidation that has characterized past attempts to suppress discussion of the science. She lashes out at John Hastings, author of a skeptical piece in Bon Appetit , noting that as "a former editor of Prevention and health column contributor to O, the Oprah Magazine, is someone you'd expect to be reasonably accurate in reporting health research findings." But she at least continues through her rant to address some meaningful issues. Would that the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee did the same, but that's another post.
Yesterday, I posted comments on DebbieN's post, but her blog is moderated and she has not seen fit to approve my comments. Even without reading her original post, you can get the flavor of her representations. In my signed comment, here's what I said:
Your post provides so many "targets of opportunity."
John Hastings posed the right question: if an intervention modifies one of many risk factors but does not modify health risk (or even worsens that risk) then we should reconsider advice to follow that recommendation. But let me skip ahead first.
I am president of the Salt Institute. We do not "demonize salt moderation." We endorse moderate salt intake recommendations as were part of the Dietary Guidelines until 2000 when they abandoned "moderation" in favor of specific (lower) intake levels.
Studies of health outcomes of those lower levels show 20-37% greater cardiovascular mortality among those reporting they consume the lower, recommended levels -- these data from the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Hypertension. See a discussion on our website at: http://www.saltinstitute.org/Issues-in-focus/Food-salt-health and http://www.saltinstitute.org/Articles-references/References-on-salt-issues/SI-references-on-issues/SI-references-on-food-salt-health-issues .
It is the proponents of "moderate" low-salt diets who are misleading the discussion by claiming that a 60% reduction in salt is "moderate." A 60% reduction is not only not "moderate" -- it is unsustainable in free-living subjects.
The health outcomes question CAN be studied. NHLBI has already proved the protocol -- the Trials of Hypertension Prevention -- only it measured the wrong outcome (BP not CV mortality).
The DASH Study you mention is very important for the blood pressure argument (but not for health outcomes). Its findings, however, are that for those with high blood pressure, the systolic BP fall on the DASH Diet was 11.4 mmHg. When hypertensive subjects were put on a diet with 60% less salt, their SBP declined 11.5 mmHg. Thus, the "DASH effect" is 11.4 mmHg and the "salt effect" is 0.1 mmHg.
I could go on, but read the website and, even better, read the referenced medical journal articles to better understand the scientific controversy that John Hastings had the courage to describe.
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