Obesity and the Salt Connection

Swine flu has now reached Britain

The Telegraph reports that two people are being treated in a hospital isolation unit in Scotland after contracting the disease on holiday in Mexico.

You can boost your immune system by cutting down on salt and salty food and by eating good healthy food with plenty of fruit and vegetables. Dieting should be avoided as inadequate food intake lowers your resistance to infection.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Salty sandwiches suck!

The Daily Mail reports on how much salt ready-made sandwiches contain.

It's a lot.

A spokesman for Subway (one of the saltiest 'offenders') said that by June its products would contain 15% less salt on average than at present.

High salt intake is a major contributory factor in many chronic health problems, including obesity.

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

Champix - if you are interested in Champix, the drug that is prescribed to help smokers to kick the habit -

you may like to know there will be a programme about it on Radio 4 tomorrow evening, April 27 at 8pm, which will explore fears that the drug is linked to depression and even suicidal tendencies, and will question the manufacturer Pfizer about the drug's safety.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jwy34

Years ago, I was a volunteer guinea-pig for the virologists who were developing the first flu vaccine.

Years ago I went twice as a volunteer to the Common Cold Research Centre near Salisbury, Wiltshire. The virologists there were researching colds and flu and they developed the first flu vaccines. Volunteers spent ten days there and during that time we learned from the virologists some facts about these respiratory diseases and how they were spread.

I remember that we were told how easy it is to catch these diseases 'by hand'. - Say someone with the infection coughs into their hand, or in blowing their nose gets viruses onto their hand. - Then you shake or otherwise touch their hand. - You'd get the viruses onto your hand. - Or they open a door, say, and you later touch that same door-knob, and your hand picks up viruses from the door-knob. Then you rub your eyes. - People often rub their eyes. - The viruses from your hand/s enter your body through your rubbing your eyes.

If you have the habit of rubbing your eyes, it would be a good idea to try to cure yourself of it. Avoiding rubbing your eyes could save you from a bout of flu.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

£Millions lavished on boosts to hospital doctors' salaries are the latest gravy train

See Telegraph article

Fancy a regular yearly bonus of up to £75,000? - This is well over twice the average yearly pay of British workers!

Friday, April 24, 2009

EC memo tells staff how to dodge difficult questions

Opponents of GM crops protest in Spain

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Spanish city of Zaragoza calling for a ban on the use of genetically modified crops. They want their government to follow Germany’s lead in banning GM maize.
Read article at euronews.net

Read article in The Guardian (UK)

Read article on the website of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) (USA)

Stem Cells have reversed symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis: small study finds

The Telegraph reports that stem cells from patients' own body fat have reversed the symptoms of multiple sclerosis leaving some patients free from seizures and able to walk better.

Stem cell injections appear to stimulate regrowth of damaged tissue, with improvement continuing for up to a year after treatment.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Fancy being a volunteer to eat chocolate for a heart health study in Aberdeen?

Volunteers wanted for chocolate study - See this BBC News webpage for further details.

"Forty volunteers aged between 18 and 70 will be asked to eat a cocoa-rich dark chocolate specially made for the study, standard chocolate, or white chocolate.

Urine and blood samples will then be taken to assess the impact the compounds have on blood function."

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

UK Stroke Patients Still Suffer Delays in Treatment

BBC News reports that many stroke patients still do not receive the rapid attention and diagnostic tests necessary to minimise risk of serious damage.

The Royal College of Physicians found that "only 29% of patients were admitted to a stroke unit on the same day as their stroke, and only 57% within two days."

You can reduce your risk of stroke by cutting down on salt.

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Walnuts are the latest food to be described as a superfood.

See a newscast from Australia about how walnuts reduce the risk of breast cancer and about how breastfeeding protects the mother's cardiovascular health as well as being good for the baby.

You can also reduce the risk of breast cancer and improve your cardiovascular health by eating less salt and salty food. And if you or someone you know is very overweight, try this. - Stop eating salt and lose weight like magic. - Absolutely no dieting required...(o:

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Budget suggestion: put a swingeing tax on SALT - especially the salt added to tinned and processed foods and ready meals.

This would to some extent result in some people eating less salt and therefore improving their present and future health and happiness. This would save money for the NHS and hopefully would enable some ill people to become well enough to try to get a job and come off benefits.

I realise my suggestion would not be simple to implement and would need time to be spent in ironing out anomalies and other practical problems, including the squawks from the food industry who have many reasons, mostly malign, to want to be able to continue to make and sell salty food, but the time and effort would be well worth it.

When I studied economics years ago I remember we were told that salt is an example of inelastic demand because it is a necessity of life so it will be bought no matter the price. - I hope that rule is not immutable. - The time has come for a sea change in our way of thinking about salt.

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Monday, April 20, 2009

It is surely the quintessence of irony that victims of prescription drug-induced obesity are exhorted to go to their doctor for weight loss advice

when it is their doctor's ignorance on the subject that has caused their predicament...)o:

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Heather Brooke presented an excellent report about MPs and the Westminster Gravy Train on Channel 4's Dispatches programme this evening.

She had put a monumental amount of work into it and was clearly committed to the causes of freedom-of-information and exposing corruption in high places.

See The Westminster Gravy Train

Don't be duped into buying dodgy OTC weight loss drugs. - You just need to cut down on sodium intake.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that this week UK chemists will be able to sell two over-the-counter drugs that are claimed to help with weight loss. One of them is Alli, which interferes with fat digestion causing very unpleasant side-effects, and the other is Appesat, which is said to reduce appetite. Both of them are potentially harmful and neither of them is necessary for losing excess weight. - You do not need to spend money on pharmaceutical junk in order to lose weight.

Excess weight is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt and this excess weight can easily be reduced by cutting down on salt and salty food. - Read on:

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Alice Mahon has resigned from the Labour Party.

I welcome Alice Mahon's resignation from the Labour Party. Alice Mahon was a left wing Labour MP from 1987 to 2005. She is a woman of principles, who feels betrayed by the scandals associated with the present leadership of the party.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Omega-3, Vitamin C and Zinc may ease childhood asthma

A combination supplement containing omega-3, vitamin C and zinc may improve symptoms of asthma suggests a new study from Egypt. These three nutrients were associated with improvements in asthma measures, lung function, and markers of inflammation in the lungs, according to findings of a randomised, double blind, placebo-self-controlled crossover trial published in Acta Pædiatrica. “Children with moderately persistent bronchial asthma may get benefit from their diet supplementation with omega- 3 fatty acids, Zinc and vitamin C,” wrote the researchers, led by Mohammed Al Biltagi from Tanta University in Egypt.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

Reducing intake of salt/sodium also helps in preventing and in reducing asthma symptoms.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Is there a mesothelioma/cancer risk from asbestos in schools?

The Telegraph reports concern about the asbestos present in most schools and writes that "Inhaling asbestos fibres can cause illnesses including mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis. Some 1,749 men and 288 women in the UK died from mesothelioma in 2005 and deaths have doubled in the last decade."

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Statins are being touted again. They certainly manage to get a lot of publicity. - But reducing salt intake is safer and is likely to do you more good

They're banging the drum again for statins. - They seem very popular drugs with researchers. They're not so popular with the people who take them.

You can read in the Telegraph that the latest research is again calling for wider prescribing of these drugs and claiming that, by their cholesterol-lowering effect, this would reduce by a fifth the risk of stroke.

Many people embark on these drugs and give them up because of the multitude of unpleasant side-effects, which include "muscle aches, fatigue, liver problems, sleep disturbance, headaches, sexual dysfunction, amnesia and in rare cases lung disease," according to the Telegraph article.

I can't say I regard this as a big deal. - Consider this instead, taken from the BBC News website BBC News health item

"Professor Graham MacGregor, of the Action On Salt campaign, says recent studies have confirmed that cutting salt intake will cause an immediate and important fall in blood pressure.

A three gramme reduction in intake has been predicted to reduce strokes in the UK by a quarter and heart attacks by 16%"

So - without taking drugs for the rest of your life, and without putting up with many unpleasant and serious side-effects, and without visits to the doctor and the chemist - you could just reduce your salt intake and have an even greater reduction in your risk of stroke! - It's a no-brainer...(o: - Go on! Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Continued Rise in Macular Degeneration is forecast

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the name given to breakdown of the macula, the area on the retina at the back of the eye which gives clear central vision. AMD is a leading cause of vision loss in people over 65.

High blood pressure and obesity are among the risk factors for developing AMD. - Now both high blood pressure and obesity are easily and safely reduced by eating less salt and salty food, so if you want to reduce your risk of AMD - and benefit your health in countless other ways too - cut down on salt/sodium. - This involves looking carefully at the nutrition information on the food you buy, and choosing the lower sodium options.

If AMD runs in your family then lower salt intake would seem a good preventative measure for you to take.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in food

Limits urged on drug industry funding that influences medical practice

A group of doctors and researchers called on medical associations to limit the funding they receive from the drug and device companies, in a move to limit industry's influence on how medicine is practised.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)

Residues of human prescription drugs have been found in fish caught near to wastewater treatment plants

These included medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression.
Read Associated Press news report at yahoo.com

If you are against the Lisbon Treaty

If you are against the Lisbon Treaty you can sign a European-wide petition to reject it.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Forget calories! - If you're obese or overweight, SALT is the poison on your plate!

If you are trying to lose excess weight, I urge you to try this way of losing weight. It is safe and simple and it involves no hunger and no drugs.

Diets don't work! - Salt reduction does work.

Remember:

If you're obese or overweight,
SALT is the poison on your plate!
Margaret Wilde © 2008

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Do you think that bribing overweight people to lose weight is likely to work? - I don't.

The NHS thinks
that paying overweight people to lose weight and keep it off for 6 months will cost less than dealing with the health problems caused by being overweight. I doubt that payment for weight loss will produce any lasting reduction in obesity because in order to lose excess weight people need to be told the truth about how to do it. The present advice that the NHS gives is to cut down on sugar, fat and calories and increase exercise. Following this advice does not reduce weight. - Dieting tends to increase weight, actually.

Obesity is not caused by over-eating. - You know that you see lots of slim people eating like there's no tomorrow and they don't put weight on, so clearly eating too much is not the cause of the 'obesity epidemic'.

Obesity is caused by a combination of salt sensitivity and salt intake. - Only people who are sensitive to salt become fat/overweight/obese. This happens because for them, salt is very harmful: it holds excess water in their bodies. This is often called fluid retention or oedema. The veins swell and the skin gets thinner as it stretches to accommodate the swollen veins.

Reducing calories does not help with these problems. It is irrelevant to them. - Reducing salt is what helps. - By eating less salt and salty food you can easily and swiftly lose some of the excess water and thus lose weight - a lot of weight, since water is heavy. - Remember the mnemonic:

'A pint of pure water
Weighs a pound and a quarter.'

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Massive spending on NHS bureaucracy is widely condemned

I urge you to read the full Telegraph article about this "bureaucratic black hole" which costs the taxpayer such vast, unmerited sums and fails to deliver anything remotely approaching value for money. The NHS is certainly not a national health service; it is a national disgrace - and an extremely expensive one.

In the last week I have received two emails with content that may interest 'slimmers'.

The emails had been sent to me via my website. Both were thanking me for the information on my website as they had found it very helpful.

One woman had written to tell me she had lost 3 and a half pounds in a week by following my advice to reduce salt intake. Another woman, a former nurse, had written to tell me she had lost 7 pounds in 4 or 5 days by following my salt reduction advice!

If you are trying to lose excess weight, I urge you to try this way of losing weight. It is safe and simple and it involves no hunger and no drugs.

Diets don't work! - Salt reduction does work.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Friday, April 10, 2009

If you still think that statins are the bee's knees, have a read of this:

Dr Briffa's assessment of statins

It doesn't look to me as though they're of much benefit to many people other than those who work for the drug companies or have shares in them...

Thursday, April 09, 2009

As the apparently inexorable rise in the incidence and severity of obesity continues, what can be done? - The 'experts' MUST tell the truth!

Obesity CANNOT be reduced by cutting down on food intake, CANNOT be reduced by cutting down on calories. Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. - It doesn't matter how many doctors claim that obese people just need to eat less and move more. - It isn't true. It doesn't work. - There has never been any evidence to show that it works. Never. Because it doesn't. - It is a false assumption that is destroying the lives of millions of innocent sufferers the world over.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt/sodium. - That's it. That's it in a nutshell. - Reducing obesity depends on reducing salt intake in the people who are obese. Preventing obesity depends on feeding children low salt meals, not the high salt meals and snacks that so many children eat. And preventing obesity also depends on curbing the reckless over-prescribing of drugs by our drug-obsessed medical profession. This is because many prescribed drugs actually cause salt sensitivity/fluid retention/morbid obesity and the multitude of health problems associated with obesity: high blood pressure, etc. In other words, doctors themselves are causing the obesity they chide their patients about! Doctors themselves are causing the chronic illnesses that are destroying people's health and denuding the coffers of the NHS.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

"Chemical cosh" administered to teenage girls in 1980s Church of England children's home has caused birth defects in their own children

This Telegraph article draws attention to a scandalous practice in the 1970s and 1980s in which teenage girls were forcibly and inappropriately dosed with powerful psychotropic drugs as a method of behaviour control. As well as the harm and indignity perpetrated on these girls at the time, further dreadful harm has resulted in later years.

When these girls as adults gave birth to babies, the babies were born with serious disabilities. We read that "One of the women, Teresa Cooper, had three children, all with birth defects, after leaving the home in 1984 at the age of 16" and that she had been "given medication at least 1,248 times over a 32-month period."

On this BBC News webpage we read that "evidence shows the girls were, for years, given drugs which had been strongly criticised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Teresa, for instance, was given major tranquillisers: Haloperidol, Droleptan and Depixol. She was also given valium, diazepam up to 10 times the current recommended dose and Sparine, another major tranquilliser.

Jeffrey Aronson, professor of clinical pharmacology at Oxford University, says he has not seen a situation to compare and that the amounts and types of drugs given to Teresa were "unacceptable"."

I urge you to read the whole of the BBC news article. The 1980s are not very long ago. This appalling cruelty on defenceless children should never have been considered acceptible.

Some doctors are making the absurd claim that Ritalin could help with Britain's obesity crisis.

In this Telegraph article we read that doctors are making the absurd claim that Ritalin could help with Britain's obesity crisis. - Ritalin is one of the controversial psychotropic drugs that have harmed so many children unfortunate enough to have had them prescribed as treatment for ADHD, a putative illness used as a 'diagnosis' by some psychiatrists with strong connections with the drug industry and the drug industry's money. See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2008/06/for-years-harvard-child-psychiatrist.html and http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2009/03/read-about-senator-chuck-grassley-of.html

The Telegraph article says: "Doctors behind the latest findings claim a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by undiagnosed ADHD prevents severely obese patients from having the willpower to lose weight."

This is a nonsensical, completely false claim. - Obesity is not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain; it is caused by fluid retention, in turn caused by sodium retention, frequently itself caused as a side-effect of some other powerful prescription drug! - Obese people have more than enough health problems to cope with, without foolish doctors prescribing them pharmaceutical junk that will harm them further.

Obesity is easily, safely and swiftly reduced by giving up dieting completely, since it is harmful and does not work, and instead concentrating on cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food in order to reduce the fluid retention.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Monday, April 06, 2009

Oily fish may provide some protection against prostate cancer.

Oily fish containing Omega-3 fatty acids may provide protection from prostate cancer. See Chester Evening Leader

This appears to be genuine scientific research, i.e. not funded by sponsors with commercial interests in oily fish or Omega-3 fatty acids.

Reducing salt intake also reduces the risk of developing certain cancers.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Takeways and adult ready meals do not give toddlers a healthy start in life.

Wales News online has some good advice here

These meals - takeaways and ready meals - tend to be low in essential nutrients like vitamins, and they also contain a high proportion of salt/sodium, and salt is particularly bad for small children, as well as giving them a taste for salty food which will continue to impair their health as they grow older. They will have higher blood pressure than if they were eating less salty food,. They will be more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and heart problems. They will even be more likely to have a stroke at a young age! - You may also be surprised to learn that it is salt and salty food that causes obesity in children.

You will give your children a healthier and happier start in life if you give them less salty food to eat and if you encourage them to eat plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables.

See Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

Sunday, April 05, 2009

I believe that such neglect should result in criminal prosecutions.

Letters Page of the Sunday Telegraph today

I hope you will go to the Telegraph link and read the shocking letter from Dr Peter N Hargreaves, a consultant in community palliative medicine in West Sussex. - Here are the first and last paragraphs:

"SIR – I applaud your campaign to right the disasters that are being inflicted daily on patients (report, March 29). I am a consultant in community palliative medicine and a great deal of my time is now taken up with trying to heal the psychological traumas that patients have endured while in hospital."

"An audit of my patients who received intravenous rehydration showed that 50 per cent of them went home. Refusal to rehydrate leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of death. I am convinced large numbers of patients are having their lives shortened either by neglect or by express denial of simple therapies. "

Norovirus outbreak at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital

Norovirus outbreak in Devon hospital
BBC news item

Some wards have been closed and some routine operations have had to be cancelled at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital because of the vomiting bug. Visitors who have had any diarrhoea and vomiting symptoms in the past three days are asked to stay away.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

My Response to Elsevier's article on "Combating Weight Gain Caused by Antipsychotic Treatments"

Combating weight gain caused by antipsychotic treatments
by Elsevier

Many antipsychotic drugs cause weight gain, often massive weight gain, and Elsevier's article is about research evaluating the effect of another drug, modafinil, on olanzapine-associated weight gain in normal volunteer subjects.

It's alarming how ill-informed 'prescribers' are about the adverse effects of the powerful drugs they inflict on their patients.

All prescription drugs that result in weight gain do so because they cause the person taking them to develop some fluid retention. The extra fluid that accumulates in the patient's body contains sodium ions and the water associated with the sodium, in other words it is salt water. - The person has become slightly sensitive to salt.

The longer the medication is taken and the higher the dose, the greater the salt sensitivity. In a person who is not sensitive to salt, any excess salt intake above the biological minimum of salt that the body requires - about 1.3g per day - the excess salt and the water associated with it is excreted in the urine. In salt-sensitive individuals. some of the excess salt intake is retained in the body, along with the water that always accompanies it, thus causing fluid retention and weight gain (and also, incidentally, damaging the kidneys to some extent).

The way to reduce or to prevent the weight gain associated with antipsychotic drugs (and many other drugs too, including many prescribed steroids and antidepressants) is to avoid eating salt and salty food. - It is as simple - and as difficult! - as that. - So much food that we eat these days has had salt added by manufacturers that it is difficult to achieve a low salt intake; it is, however, well worth the effort.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

21 NHS trust hospitals are failing to meet safe hygiene standards

We read in the Guardian that 21 NHS trusts have failed hygiene standards that determine whether they are safe to treat patients. Among these dirty hospitals are Barts in London, one of the oldest medical centres in Europe, Leeds teaching hospitals and Alder Hey children's hospital in Liverpool.

Britain's dirty hospitals have long been regarded as a national scandal and there are many people who fear ever having to go into one as a patient in case they become infected by any of the so-called superbugs. Many years ago the opposite was the case, and our hospitals were very clean indeed. I personally think that as well as exhorting staff, patients and patients' visitors to wash their hands more and to use the antiseptic hand-gels, that setting limits on hours of hospital visiting would help a lot, and being stricter about the number of visitors at a time per patient.

Friday, April 03, 2009

Eating chocolate could help your with your mental arithmetic.

Read here in the Telegraph about how chocolate could be a help to students revising for exams. The researchers believe it's because chocolate contains flavanols, part of a group of chemicals called polyphenols, and that they work by increasing the flow of blood into the brain.

Well I've long considered that chocolate is very good for people, and contrary to what we are usually told by 'experts', chocolate is not fattening. - And that's because it usually contains either no salt at all or very little salt. - Read on!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Has your nose become bigger/redder/fatter/more bulbous? Do you wonder what to do about it?

The most likely reason for it is that you have become sensitive to salt and so the blood vessels in your nose, along with your other blood vessels, have become swollen with extra salt and water in your blood stream. - The good news is that if you cut down on salt/sodium all of this swelling will be reduced and your nose, along with the rest of your body, will look less red and bulbous. (If you happen to drink a lot of alcohol, it would also help if you reduce alcohol intake, but you doubtless already know that.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page