By Selwyn Duke

The topic of spiritual health is much more interesting than that of physical health (yet we’re obsessed with the latter), so I’d rather talk about fat egos than fat bodies.   But today I’m going to make an exception.   

I have a confession to make: I’m a saltaholic.  Salting my food is one of the things I’m not very conservative about, and I have no intention of ceasing my liberal NaCl application.  Why?  Very simply because I’ve known since I was a youth that salt has gotten a bad rap. 

What prompts me to write about this is an article I stumbled across the other day.  It’s written by Sandy Szwarc, a nurse and journalist who writes about health and medical issues, and is titled "Traffic tickets for salt — Does healthy eating mean low-salt?"  It’s a long piece that debunks the myth that high sodium
diets increase the risk of health problems.  Among other things, Szwarc reports on the findings of studies and writes:

Heart disease, high blood pressure and deaths
were inversely related to salt intakes: the higher the sodium, the
lower the risks; the lower the dietary salt, the higher the risks . . . .

The lowest sodium intakes — the 1500 mg/day amount some are saying we should all be eating — were associated with an 80% higher risk of cardiovascular disease compared with those consuming the highest salt diets. The lowest salt intakes were associated with a 24% higher risk of all-cause mortality . . . .

. . . Dr. David Klurfeld, Ph.D., professor and
chairman of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at Wayne State
University, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition,
said, ‘the better controlled studies fail to show a significant benefit
on blood pressure for large groups with sodium restriction.’

Moreover, writes Szwarc, low salt diets can actually be deleterious to health:

When we eat low
salt diets, however, our sodium reserves are lower. So, if we get sick,
exercise or go out in the hot sun and then drink water essential to
avoiding dehydration, the amount of sodium in our body can more quickly
become diluted to dangerously low levels.* That’s called hyponatremia. It’s the most common electrolyte disorder and a special risk for infants and elderly, according
to Dr. Sandy Craig, M.D., at the Department of Emergency Medicine,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s also dangerous and
can result in swelling of our brain, seizures, coma, heat stroke, leg
cramps, heart arrhythmias and circulatory collapse.

Not surprisingly, some of the longest-living people in the world also have the highest salt consumptions . . . .

There are growing numbers of studies in the medical literature suggesting low-salt diets might risk negative
effects on our health in other ways, such as activating the
rennin-angiotensin system and the sympathetic nervous system and
increasing insulin resistance. These effects could actually raise risks for cardiovascular disease . . . .

In other words, like so many political and social ideas nowadays, the health admonition to limit salt intake is just so much nonsense.  Sure, it’s so often the case that what tastes good is bad for you, but salt is an exception.  So why be relegated to a life of eating bland food?  Sprinkle away.

Now that we’re talking about this, it’s apropos that I should mention a recent news story.  Believe it or not, some local governments in England — a nation becoming synonymous with nanny statism — are taking action to get people to reduce the amount of salt they put on their fish and chips.  These control-freak lunkheads have actually gone so far as to conduct a study on how much sodium diners were ingesting during such a meal and spend taxpayer money on, get the Digitalis, five-hole salt shakers to dispense to restaurants.  They want these establishments to use them in place of the 17-hole shakers that are now standard.  I’m telling you, you can’t make this stuff up.  I mean, my side is upset about government intrusion to begin with, but this is really, well, throwing salt in the wound . . . (OK, I’m a social commentator, not a comedian).

Seriously, though, this issue is emblematic of the problem with statism.  Not only is government increasingly treating us like marionettes, convinced it must save us from ourselves, but it often doesn’t know what it’s doing.  How could it?  Not many people are experts in very many fields (and we need sages more than experts, as the latter sometimes have worse judgment than the consensus of laymen), yet those in government presume to be qualified to legislate on virtually everything.  To make it worse, they tend to be bereft of common sense.  After all, I knew as a teen that the standard line on salt was rubbish, but these statists haven’t figured it out yet.   And the end result is that, in the name of preserving our health, they may actually be endangering it.

The truth is that the only thing politicians are consistently adept at is attaining and maintaining power.  As for bureaucrats, I haven’t yet figured out what expertise they possess other then the ability to punch a time clock.

Visit on all of them Mussolini’s fate, and pass the salt.

As for Sandy Szwarc, bravo, she’s certainly a woman who is worth hers.

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