Why is adding salt to food more harmful than in former years?

Adding salt to food is more harmful than years ago because in our developed world, a greater proportion of people are now sensitive to salt than used to be the case. There is both a higher incidence of salt sensitivity and the salt sensitivity itself tends to be more severe. - One of the factors contributing to salt sensitivity is the fact that these days, in general, most children- even toddlers -eat a diet that is too high in salt. Salt is especially bad for children. High salt intake, such as from salty snacks like crisps and salted nuts and junk like Cheesestrings, is a major cause of child obesity. - See Children and Salt. And a taste for salt acquired in childhood is not very easy to 'unacquire'. So the habit of eating over-salted food literally feeds a growing number of related health problems including high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, stroke, heart disease, depression, dementia and so many more.

 

But at least as important a causative factor in salt sensitivity as high salt intake in childhood is the ever-growing ingestion of pharmaceutical drugs. Pharmaceutical drugs are being prescribed more and more in the UK (and even more still in United States) and other industrialised countries. Most of the prescriptions are for drugs that cause sodium and water/fluid retention and salt sensitivity. I don't mean that they are prescribed with the intention of causing sodium and water retention, but problems with salt are the most common undesirable side-effects of the most frequently prescribed rugs. These include antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antipsychotics, steroids, birth control medications and many more.

 

When you couple the over-prescribing of these dangerous salt-sensitising drugs with the highly-salted processed food that is the norm for a majority of consumers these days, it is assuredly a recipe for disaster both on a personal scale and in the wider social context. - I suggest that you try to avoid prescription drugs as far as you safely can and cut down on salt and salty food as much as you reasonably can. You'll lose some excess weight and improve your health and you'll feel sooo much better!

Dr Mercola is warning us about the presence of glyphosate in human urine

Dr Mercola is warning us about the presence of glyphosate in human urine and about the many health risks that may result from this toxic component of Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller. If you are interested in health and in the safety of food, as surely you are, I urge you to read his article.

The Daily Telegraph investigation exposes corrupt practices in the metal on metal medical devices saga

Journalists from the Telegraph have been investigating the scandal of the faulty 'metal on metal' hip implants. These implants have caused increased pain and disability for patients, some of whose experiences are highlighted in this article. All too often the agencies that the public looks to to safeguard our health and well-being turn out, as in this case, to do the opposite - at great cost in personal suffering to the patients involved and in financial cost to the NHS and the wider economy. In this article we read:

 

"The European system of regulation has prompted widespread concern over whether medical experts are really at the vanguard of deciding which devices can be implanted in patients. 

 The Daily Telegraph and the British Medical Journal therefore decided to investigate the rigour of the licensing process, amid allegations that dozens of private companies are competing with one another to offer licences for medically questionable devices. Was profit being put before patient safety?"

And of course when you read the article you cannot but conclude that profit is indeed being put before patient safety. This is but one of the many undesirable consequences of our present membership of the EU, notorious as it is for corruption and waste. The Telegraph carries an analysis of the flawed regulatory system, written by Carl Heneghan. I urge you to read it, and to put yourself in the place of the innocent victims of this chicanery.

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to EU

It's beyond parody isn't it? - See this report in the Telegraph, where you will read: "The European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize, despite a year marked by riots on streets of many capitals and the looming prospect of an acrimonious break up amid an economic crisis caused by the euro." - Could any other entity possibly have wrought greater damage on the EU's member states than the Gargantuan parasitic bureaucracy itself?

""The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe," said the Nobel prize committee.""- Now would you say that the Nobel prize committee was, in this instance, exhibiting lack of sanity or lack of probity? - I am of the opinion that they are still sane... I have written about the Nobel prize committee before.

Obesity is on the increase in Scotland. Scottish people desperately need to be told the truth about how to reduce obesity.

BBC News reported in November 2009 that two-thirds of men and more than half of women in Scotland are now overweight. Well that's a great shame and much of that increase could have been avoided. It is about eight years since I contacted Bill Gray, who was at the time National Project Officer of the Scottish Community Diet Project, Scottish Consumer Council, and also others working in the same field. We wrote and we spoke on the phone. I sent him lots of material and evidence making clear that to reduce obesity/overweight it is necessary to reduce salt intake and that it is not necessary to diet or to try to lose weight by exercising. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted the blogpost from Sunday 29 November 2009, but since it was important and is still just as relevant, I am reposting it today, 8 October 2012.

This is an extract from what I wrote to him (in late 2001, if I remember correctly):

"As I explained to your female colleague, I am not asking you to endorse my
advice.

I am asking you to tell people that it could be salt and water retention
that has caused their weight gain and that if they reduce their salt intake
they could lose weight. They have only to try it. They will then find for
themselves that they lose weight. Without the information that salt can be
the cause of weight gain they are highly unlikely to discover it for
themselves.

I have quoted to you EXACTLY what Sir Richard Doll wrote to me, but you seem
to have discounted what HE says, as well as what I say.

Why I say you have treated me shabbily is mainly because you are not a man
of your word. You promised, TWICE, to reply to my letters. You did not
reply. Your colleague, stammering and almost incoherent when I spoke to her,
also promised me a response. Again nothing. Good God! You would think I was
asking you to tell people something that might endanger their health rather
that enhance it! Cutting down on salt is entirely safe and completely free.
Just give the additional information that it could also cause weight loss in
the obese.

Why don't you have the courage to believe Sir Richard?

My MP has sent me a photocopy of a letter he has received from Pauline
Jackson, a friend of mine and another of his constituents. In a separate
email, I shall send you a copy of it.

THEN PLEASE COME BACK TO ME ON THIS.

Copying my stuff and passing it on to others in the hope that they will have
the courage to do what you yourself lack the courage for, is just a waste of
time and paper. They will be as cowardly as you have shown them that you
are. They too will be unwilling to put their heads above the parapet and you
will all continue to leave many THOUSANDS of people needlessly suffering all
sorts of health problems and all sorts of emotional and social and
psychological distress. Do you really want that on your conscience?"

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!
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
Sodium in foods
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers
Children and Obesity
Associated health conditions
and FAT RETENTION

It's National Poetry Day today

Safely stored in memory, poems reappear to strengthen us in times of trouble and take us back to happier days.

When I was little and it was bedtime, my mother used to read/recite a poem to me about all nature's little ones going to bed. My favourite verse began with the butterfly drowsy. I often used to think about the butterfly drowsy. The words were heady with sleep and mystery.

The butterfly drowsy has folded its wing,
The bees are returning, no more the birds sing;
Their labour is over, their nestlings are fed,
It's time little people were going to bed.