SaltSensibility

The latest issue of Food Technology, the foundation publication of the Institute of Food Technologists has an article in the Food, Medicine & Health section devoted to the issue of salt and hypertension. The knee-jerk response by certain regulatory agencies to very limited and inconclusive evidence is highlighted along with the dangers of developing policies based on the vocal opinions of a few commited anti-salt advocates. The authors, Clemens and Pressman, go out of their way to remind us that that hypertension is not a discrete disease nor is it a clinical end point, but rather a multifaceted risk factor steeped in myth-information and too-often passed off as a proxy for cardiovascular disease - a misleading representation.

More articles like this one, in widely circulated journals pointing will get rid of the hype and reduce the tension in the whole hypertention debate.

Posted by Mort Satin at 04:40 PM | Permalink

As Mort blogged earlier this morning, the Salt Institute gets calls constantly from the media. In an exchange yesterday with another Chicago area reporter writing on salt and health, I drew an analogy that may help explain the basic point of the Salt Institute's advocacy on salt and health. See what you think.

We argue that the relevant question that should be asked with regard to a public health advisory to reduce dietary sodium is "Will cutting salt intake improve health?" Instead, some frame the question as "Will cutting salt improve blood pressure?" They aren't the same thing. When you cut salt, you "buy" all the consequences, intended and unintended, that are triggered as the body recognizes it is consuming less salt.

I likened public confusion on the issue with the current flap over national security policy. Those who characterize our national security challenge as combatting terrorism have a very different worldview from those who define our challenge in terms of our engagement in Iraq. It's not a matter of patriotism; it's a matter of focus and context.

In the war against cardiovascular mortality, some would test our weapons systems for their impact on overall health and mortality; others would focus on the specific problem of blood pressure. Without doubt, blood pressure is related to cardiovascular health, but it is one of several important "theaters." It's important to identify specifically and correctly our rules of engagement before we sally forth to meet the enemy. We want to avoid any "friendly fire" casualties.

Unfortunately, experts lack consensus over the right questions to ask in both challenges: national security and cardiovascular health.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 10:36 AM | Permalink

I received an interesting call the other day from a correspondent preparing story for the Chicago Tribune. She had heard from an author that so little salt was consumed in Finland that there was actually no word for it in the Finnish language. This struck me as rather odd because the Finns are known to consume among the highest levels of salt in the world. How could that be possible without having a word for the world's favorite condiment? Might a typical conversation around the kitchen table go something like this?

Olga, this soup is perfect, you added just the right amount of white stuff and pepper. Would you mind passing the white stuffine crackers, they go perfect with this soup.

Oh, I’m glad you like it Paavo, guess what's up next?

Don't tell me it's my favorite, white stuff herring or perhaps some of your excellent white stuff pork and beans? Olga, my darling, you are really the white stuff of the earth.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? In fact, it didn't take long to set the record straight. The word for salt in Finland is suola. Another urban legend destroyed!

Sometimes you have to take some authors with a pinch of suola… or white stuff!!

Posted by Mort Satin at 05:56 AM | Permalink

The news of discovery of four salt men in Chehr Abad mine was last reported on July 27 in SaltSensibility. They are among the very rare mummies formed as a result of natural conditions. Samples of these salt men were sent to Oxford and Cambridge for genetic studies and DNA analysis. Today, the director of the archaeological team working at the Chehr Abad Salt Mine announced that a group of Oxford archaeologists expressed interest in being part of the study team working at the mine site.

Posted by Mort Satin at 06:34 PM | Permalink

There are 14,000 known uses of salt and I've just run across one I hadn't heard before, but it may be on the list already. I'm in Prince Edward Island for the annual meeting of the Transportation Association of Canada and here learned among the local lore of a means by which the Prohibition-era bootleggers avoided interdiction of their off-shore deliveries: by using salt. The bootleggers would weigh-down barrels of rum with blocks of salt and pitch them over the side of their ships at the appointed delivery point; then, depart, perhaps hotly pursued by the Coast
Guard. Their land-based confederates would wait until the salt blocks dissolved enough to release the buoyant rum barrels and then row out and retrieve them when no Coast Guard was around. Let's hope someone has developed a means to thwart this tried-and-true method of clandestine "importation."

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 10:11 AM | Permalink

The American public is unaware that expectant mothers are ingesting only about three-fourths of a key nutrient required for proper fetal brain development according to an NIH-funded public opinion poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporationa and publicized by The Solae Company.

And after reading this news report, Americans still won't know the crucial importance of adequate iodine nutrition for pregnant women and infants since the article is about choline. NIH has done nothing to publicize the need for improved iodine nutrition, but its sister agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tracked a decline in the iodine status of the American diet including a fourfold increase in pregnant women consuming less than the World Health Organization's minimum acceptable levels of iodine.

A major source of dietary iodine, of course, is in iodized salt.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 07:58 AM | Permalink