7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 1/8

Salt Health Risk? A Big Pinch of Healthy Scepticism

by Ian R Thorpe

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle in the media about the dangers of salt in our 

diet. Some are going so far as to say salt is the new tobacco.

While health campaigners have been banging on for several decades about how

harmful salt is to humans (so harmful in fact that if we don’t get enough we get very

ill and die) in the last ten years the intensity of the campaign has been stepped up.

Think back to 2004 and a government misinformation campaign that featured Sid, a

“giant slug with a message”, who slimed his way onto television screens back to warn

 people about the dangers of consuming too much salt. “Stay away from fast cars,

loose women and SALT!” he screamed.

Stay away from SALT? Now that really is

nonsensical. Sodium, the active ingredient of salt

is not only one of the minerals most essential to

life, it is present in everything we eat, in fact those

Salt, health risk or health benefit 

Sid the Slug 

7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 2/8

“five a day” portions of fruit and vegetables the government’s misinformation

campaigners are always haranguing us about contain quite a lot of sodium.

Sid’s message, (YouTube) that a sprinkling of sodium not only kill slugs but

humans too, has now become the received wisdom worldwide. High salt intake islinked to high blood pressure, or hypertension as medical scientists wrongly call it

(well what would you expect, they’re scientists?) Salt is a key risk factor for strokes,

heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases they rave. Together those rank as the

world’s number one killers. In the warped and fervid imaginations of scientists salt

induced cardio vascular problems are far bigger killers than malnutrition, poverty or 

old age . The World Health Organization (WHO – the people who brought you the

Swine Flu pandemic) puts cutting salt intake alongside quitting smoking as one of the

top 10 “best buys” in public health.

“Blood pressure is the biggest cause of death in the world … and salt is the most

important thing that puts it up,” says Graham MacGregor, a professor of 

cardiovascular medicine at the London-based Wolfson Institute of Preventive

Medicine and chairman of the influential World Action on Salt and Health lobbygroup (WASH). “Cutting back on salt gives a direct beneficial effect on the biggest

cause of death in the world. That’s why it’s so important.” Just think about the sheer 

idiocy of that statement and you realise Mr. McGregor is a serious rival to Barack 

Obama as the most stupid individual in the world. Blood pressure is the biggest

killer? Well in a crazy way I suppose it’s true. If we don’t have blood pressure we’re

already dead, possibly through lack of sodium. Therefore everybody who dies must

have some blood pressure in order to be able to do so. But you don’t have to take my

word for it. There are plenty of doctors and medical researchers question the

“science”

So what is the truth?

7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 3/8

Recent scientific research suggests the basis for a global hate campaign by the

“progressive liberal consensus” against salt that rivals their hate campaigns against

tobacco, alcohol, junk food and the working classes is not what you’d call rock solid.

In fact all, that is ALL, the evidence that was not funded by Big Pharma who want to

 protect us from cardio vascular disease by forcing anyone over 50 to take blood

 pressure lowering drugs) points to the fact that salt intake way above the

recommended daily level is not harmful to people whose bodies are functioning

normally. Two 2011 studies indicate that the evidence is inconclusive, or that

reducing salt may even be harmful.

I should point out here I almost died as a result of having too much sodium in my

 blood. The problem was not related to diet however but to stress. Too many years of 

working in a high stress environment resulted in an adrenal gland malfunction,

Conn’s Syndrome, which cause my body to retain salt and eliminate potassium, a

very dangerous imbalance of blood electrolytes. Once diagnosed the condition is

easily controllable but my doctor (you’ve heard of Dr. Dolittle? Well this guy was Dr.

Do-nothing;) was more interested in lecturing me on the evils of salt and anunhealthy diet than actually finding out what was wrong. Eventually I was left brain

damaged and paralysed by a brain haemorrhage. (That is another story however 

which you can read in my memoir of recovery Calumnious Strokes – which will be

online soon.)

“There’s a view that salt is the root cause of all high blood pressure worldwide

and some people religiously hold on to that belief,” said Tony Heagerty, head of the

cardiovascular research group at Britain’s Manchester University and a former 

Salt refinery

7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 4/8

 president of the International Society of Hypertension. “But the evidence for that is

actually pretty flimsy.” As Dr. Heagarty says, “If you torture data long enough it will

give you the answer you want.”

 Note that appearance of that word “religiously.” We have seen climate scientists

turning their science into a religion, now we find that medical scientists are at it.

Scientists seem to hold to the dogmas of their profession more tightly than the fine

 people of Pennsylvania are alleged by certain politicians to cling to their guns and

Bibles.

After years of claims by the academic lobby who are in the pay of Big Pharma

and big government that on salt “the science is settled” (now where have we heard

that before?) in recent months debate that has flared with each side harnessing a

legion of experts in hypertension, heart disease, nutrition and scientific analysis. The

salt industry has, naturally, jumped on studies that question the conventional wisdom,

and at least one food manufacturer has started to add salt back to some of its

 processed foods. At times, as happened when people started to challenge the spurious

and now discredited claims that the science was settled and carbon dioxide emitted by

human activity was solely responsible for climate problems, the row became very

 personal with the science lobby, having no logical argument other than, “We’re

scientists, that proves we’re right,” adopting tactics usually associated with religious

zealots and political seditionists to attack their critics.

Us poor consumers are again trapped in the middle of these two interest groups,

 both of which stand to gain by winning their case. Some people in the anti – salt

lobby may have jumped to the conclusion that I am a fan of salty food. They could

not be more wrong, I have always hated salty food and the junk food which relies on

the addition of excessive salt to mask the fact that it is over processed, disgusting,

 bland, tasteless pap. I dislike the taste of salt too. But such things are down to

individual choice.

Instead of being allowed to exercise our freedom to choose we have become

unsuspecting guinea pigs in a grand global experiment.

7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 5/8

“The two sides are totally polarized and there’s no agreement or consensus on

what the answer is,” says Peter Sherratt of the UK Salt Association. “Any new

scientific paper which supports the anti-salt position is lauded as proof salt

consumption is dangerous, but any piece of evidence or science showing salt is

 beneficial, or reducing it dangerous, is criticized as unrepresentative and

unscientific,” he said. This sounds, does it not, exactly like a reprise of the non – 

debate about carbon dioxide, with the side that has government and the media on

 board simply shouting down opposing views. Science was ever fascism's whore.

The salt issue has big

implications for the pharmaceutical

 business however. Salt used in food

accounts for only a fraction of the

250 million tonnes of annual global

 production. Looking at the United

States alone, 1.5 million tonnes of 

so-called human nutrition salt was

sold in 2009 with a value of more

than $321 million.

But the U.S. snack foods industry, a key consumer of salt which includes major 

companies like Pepsico’s Frito-Lay and Kraft’s Nabisco, has a combined annual

revenue of $27 billion, according to analysis by company profile builder Hoover’s.

Then there’s the business of selling drugs to treat high blood pressure. Worldwide

sales of anti-hypertensives were around $35 billion in 2009, according to research by

Deutsche Bank.

There is a caveat here though. Salt is not dangerous so long as it is natural salt,

sea salt, rock salt, what I have seen one very silly British “expert” describe as “posh

salt.” There is nothing posh about natural salt. It is the commercial product, usually

labelled “table salt” that poses the threat to our health is any threat exists. As with

refined sugar and refined white flour, the compound you see in the packet might look 

 pretty and snowy white (the colour of purity) but whether it ought legally to be

 Inside a salt mine

7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 6/8

described as salt is a different matter.

There is a big difference

 between any real salt (12-18%

essential trace minerals by

volume), and what many people in

the world think is salt (what is left

after real salt has all minerals

removed - for sale to healthcare

companies to be used in diet

supplements? - and is

BLEACHED with chlorine). The

chlorinated salt is poison, which is why it makes people sick if they drink salt water,

raises blood pressure, etc., whereas the real salt provides us with minerals that are

essential to maintain life. So table salt is toxic and can be lethal in larges enough

doses. Real (unprocessed, natural) salt is also something you wouldn't want to eat by

the spoonful but is, in small quantities, something we would die without.

Unfortunately, all processed food, and most salt in shakers (restaurants, homes) is the

 poisonous variety.

In some countries, they are now even putting FLUORIDE in the salt (is it really

worth sacrificing your general health in exchange for a slight chance of avoiding a

tooth cavity? (Same kind as put in drinking water supplies in some parts of Europe

and the USA - not the raw fluoride, but poisonous kind generated as a toxic waste

 byproduct of various industrial activities). So YES we all NEED salt as this article

says, but make it good salt.

So when we look objectively at the case against salt and wonder why it is so

demonised, as usual it’s a case of “follow the money.” Regardless of the effect on

health, there is more money at stake for the supporters of the anti salt lobby,

 particularly if they can persuade government to pass the laws that will make criminals

of those who refuse to take their daily doses of blood thinners, beta blockers and

artery scrubbers. Just don’t ask about the harmful effects such drugs might have on

 Harvesting sea salt 

7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 7/8

 people who don’t actually suffer from the conditions the drugs treat.

RELATED POSTS:

27 Reasons Why You Should Not be scared Of Salt

 New Study Shows Toxins In GMOs Are Poisonous To Mammals

Food chemicals and pseudo science

The food science fraud

Food fascists try to ban meat

Everything the experts said is bad for you is good for you

Alcohol Related Authoritarianism

Everything is a danger but Nanny Orwell will protect you

Anorexic, Normal, fat, obese, see what the experts say about your body this week 

Heinz Off Our HP Sauce

Eating Shite Makes You Fat And Ill

Fighting back against the food fascists

The lost weekend – only a bicycle riding vegan for company

7/30/2019 Is Salt As Serious A Health Risk As We Are Told, Or Is Corporate Profit Behind The Scaremongering.

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/is-salt-as-serious-a-health-risk-as-we-are-told-or-is-corporate-profit-behind 8/8