OBESITY AND THE SALT CONNECTION - Mensa article by Margaret Wilde

Obesity and the Salt Connection

What follows is a slightly modified version of an article I wrote for the British monthly glossy magazine of Mensa, the high IQ society, of which I am a member. It was published in the December 2004 issue. Four months later, the April 2005 issue contained a letter from Joyce Barnard, who has given permission for her name to be used here. She wrote that by following the advice I had given her a few years earlier - i.e. that to lower her high blood pressure and lose weight she simply needed to eat less sodium - she had lost 5 stones in weight (70 pounds) in a year! - All she did was stop sprinkling salt onto her meals and use LoSalt instead of ordinary salt when cooking.

Many years ago I gained a great deal of weight because of taking HRT prescribed by my GPs, mainly on the advice of an endocrinologist. - I did not realise at the time that the weight gain was because of the medication.

I became desperately ill and exhausted and had very high blood pressure for which I took Atenolol, a beta-blocker. I was so fat I could barely walk. Yet I was not overeating. My feet, hands and breasts were exquisitely painful and very red and swollen. I was unable to use my hands for many tasks. I needed a larger size in shoes. My face and neck became beetroot red and very swollen. I developed acne and eczema. I suffered from breathlessness.

Having never sprinkled salt on my food in my life, and never used it in cooking, in 1997 I became aware that there was a lot of salt in bread and cheese and breakfast cereals. Because of the connection between hypertension and salt intake I altered my eating to reduce, and eventually to exclude, all avoidable sodium. This lowered my blood pressure and I no longer needed to take Atenolol.

More spectacularly, and very unexpectedly to me, eating less salt reduced my weight by 51 pounds! - This was nothing to do with calories, fat or sugar. - The weight I lost was clearly water, which I worked out was held in my body by the salt - held in my veins, which had become massively distended and painful since I had embarked on the HRT.

I worked out that it was the oestrogen that had caused the sodium and water retention and this was confirmed when I looked in the British National Formulary for the side-effects of oestrogen. I then realised that oestrogen was a steroid, though it is not normally thought of in that category, and that the sodium and water retention came about because certain steroids and certain other prescribed drugs relax/weaken the walls of the blood vessels so that they take in excess salt and the water which accompanies it. I realised that I was a 'steroid victim'.

For many years I have been providing a free telephone helpline for people in pain in my area and for the last five years have been advising all callers to reduce their salt intake, particularly when they were obese. Their weight loss, too, has been dramatic and swift. One Mensa member whom I helped lost about a stone in a month just by eating less salt. Her dog, too, lost weight when she stopped salting his food!

I firmly believe that the massive rise in the incidence of obesity, especially child obesity, is due to the prevalence of salt in modern diets, mainly from manufactured foods, and that calorie counting and advice about reducing fat and sugar intake and increasing exercise are counter-productive.

But salt causes obesity only in vulnerable people, i.e.

People whose veins are weak because of immaturity (babies, children),

People whose veins are weak because of steroids or HRT or amitriptyline or certain other prescribed drugs, too readily prescribed, often in very high dose,

People whose natural oestrogen levels are higher than normal (e.g. pregnant women).

People whose blood vessel walls have been weakened by 'slimming' – i.e. eating insufficient food.

Inactivity does not cause obesity. Obesity causes inactivity.
In 2001 I wrote to MPs, to medical people, to journalists, to nutritionists and others, explaining that salt sensitivity is what causes obesity, and urging that the facts be made known, particularly to steroid victims. The powerful and influential people to whom I wrote have taken no action to give publicity to the life-saving message. The public is not being told the truth about weight gain and weight loss. The best, the healthiest, the safest way to lose weight is to concentrate on eating less salt (and more potassium).

An Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Oxford, Professor Sir Richard Doll, wrote back to me in August 2001 that I was right about steroids causing weight gain because of salt and water retention and that weight can be lost by eating less salt or by taking diuretics. Sadly he seems to be the only medic who knows this! - A book on salt, written by experts on hypertension and brought out in a blaze of publicity a few years ago makes no mention of steroid victims and specifically states, among other errors, that HRT does not cause a salt problem.

A person who gains weight has a higher calorie requirement. There are two reasons for this. Having to carry a greater mass around and service a more massive body uses more calories. And having a bigger surface area means greater heat loss, since heat lost is proportional to surface area. - A greater calorie requirement results in greater appetite/hunger, so, really, overweight people need to eat more than people of normal weight. If the overweight eat insufficient calories (ie if they 'diet') they may lose weight, but it is at the cost of being hungry. There has never been the slightest evidence that the practice of fewer calories in and more calories out by way of exercise reduces obesity! - It is often confidently stated that fat will be lost by doing this. - Sadly, what is more often lost is lean tissue, usually an irreversible adverse effect.

The result of the misunderstanding of the cause of obesity is the well-known fact that over 95% of dieters actually gain weight in the long term! - They cannot be expected to go hungry all the time. - Nor would staying hungry all the time benefit them. - With insufficient calories for the body's needs, the body feeds on itself. - The skin becomes thinner; the bones become less dense; there is some hair loss, etc.

Contrast this with the right way to lose weight - by eating less sodium. - Eating less sodium releases some of the excess water held in the blood stream. This lowers the blood pressure and, significantly, lowers the weight. - Weighing less results in a lower calorie requirement so very gradually less food is eaten and this becomes a virtuous circle because less food eaten results in lower sodium intake.

In societies in which no salt is eaten (what some might describe as undeveloped or uncivilised societies) there is no obesity and no hypertension.

The cavemen and women who were our ancestors lived for millennia without added salt. Our bodies evolved on a low sodium and high potassium intake. The modern diet has reversed this to high sodium and low potassium. The intake of salt has massively increased in recent years - as has the incidence of obesity.

I submit that the universal 'slimming' advice - to eat fewer calories/less fat/sugar - is a major cause of obesity. - All that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt/sodium. This is a drug-free, cost-free course of action. There are no hunger pangs and no adverse side-effects. It requires no visits to the doctor or to the gym and it WILL work.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! -Try it! My website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ provides more details and advice. (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Margaret Wilde

Anyone is welcome to copy this article in whole or in part, provided only that it is always attributed to me, Margaret Wilde, that the information is provided free, and that my web-site address http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ is always included.

If you wish to get in touch with me, you can email me from my website.

Fat and fed up of feeling hungry and tired but still not getting slimmer?

Fat and fed up of feeling hungry and tired but still not getting slimmer? It's not fair, is it? - It's definitely not fair!

Now what to do about it, you're wondering? - Well I've some suggestions to make which I truthfully think you will find helpful. - Give up the dieting! - Give up the strenuous exercise you've been (vainly) hoping would 'burn off' some fat! - In other words, give up the deliberate and unhelpful hunger and exhaustion, and instead try seriously cutting down on salt.

I think you'll find that by eating less salt and salty food you will lose weight easily, safely and quickly. I have a webpage that tells you about which foods are high and which are low in salt/sodium. And I promise you that however much or little weight you lose this way, you will certainly feel a lot better and will be in better health. It won't make you hungry and it won't make you tired, but it will give you a very good chance of becoming slimmer and fitter. - What's not to like? - Go on! - Give it a try!

Do you remember Energen Rolls? - Supposedly an aid to slimming...

I remember Energen Rolls. Were they from the 60s? or the 70s? - I'm not sure.- They were claimed to help with 'slimming' and were intended to be eaten in place of bread. They were roughly spherical, if I remember correctly, and 'slimmers' cut them in half and spread each half with butter - or more likely, a 'low-calorie' butter substitute 'low-fat' spread - and with other fillings such as what would normally go into a sandwich.

And again, if I remember correctly, they were made of cellulose! - more akin to wood than to what we think of as food! But they had been processed to be light and airy and easy to eat. - Energen Rolls were not really food for people, even if the people were 'slimmers'. Not being termites, people could not digest cellulose and so could not obtain calories or indeed any nutrition from these early junk foods.

But to lose excess weight, you don't need to play tricks on your body and to fool your stomach into thinking it's had a satisfying meal when it's really only had pretend food. The easiest, safest, fastest way to lose excess weight is to eat real food - the sort of food our paleolithic ancestors ate millions of years ago. That is the sort of food on which our bodies evolved and so it the food best suited to our species. - Leave the cellulose for the termites!

I don't know which species to suggest you leave the low-fat spread to! - It is a laboratory-invented concoction on which no species evolved. - Likewise artificial colorings and flavourings and other non-food additives. - Steer clear of them; they are up to no good, you may be sure! - Go for fresh foods, home-cooked and unsalted, not factory-produced processed junk.

Do not believe the lies of the Diet-Gurus who tell you that by eating fewer calories than your body requires you will 'burn off' excess fat.

You won't! Your body's calorie needs will have to be met somehow. You will lose some of your precious firm flesh: some of your skin will be sacrificed and over time you will notice its loss as the skin becomes thinner.

The healthy body has a natural way of ridding itself of excess fat: it is excreted in the faeces. In this matter, a healthy body means a body that is not deficient in calcium. If your body is retaining excess fat then it isn't a diet you need, it is more calcium.

If you are overweight/obese, your blood vessel walls have been weakened by salt sensitivity and excess fluid in the bloodstream. This salt problem results in the body being depleted of calcium as calcium is excreted in the urine. You can reduce the excess blood volume by eating less salt and salty food.

See Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Lose weight

vulnerable groups

FAT RETENTION

Consider this: if the Diet-Gurus were to tell you the truth about how to lose excess weight (i.e. by avoiding salt and salty food) they would no longer be able to peddle their dangerous nonsense; they would be out of a job and their source of income would dry up.

Diets don't work! Give up dieting! - Give it up forever! Diets lose you your looks and your health; they do not make you slim.

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.

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

'Slimming' - by which I mean eating less food than your body requires - can lead to many problems - and it will not make you slimmer...

Overweight/Obesity is caused by sodium retention/fluid retention/salt sensitivity, not by eating too much food. It can be easily reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food. - If you do not eat enough food you will become cold, tired and hungry, and over time your skin and your bones will become thinner and weaker, making you more vulnerable to fractures, injury and pain. You will suffer hair loss. You may develop type 2 diabetes and other chronic health problems. - But reducing calories does not reduce fluid retention, so you will not lose excess weight. - Here is some helpful information:

Lose weight safely, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, 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!

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

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

Did you see last night on Channel 4 that tiny, tiny baby kangaroo/joey emerge from its mother and make its difficult way to the teat in her pouch?

Extraordinary Animals in the Womb

As I write, there are 30 days in which you can catch up with viewing it here - http://www.channel4.com/video/brandless-catchup.jsp?vodBrand=extraordinary-animals-in-the-womb

More details of the programme are here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/15/nosplit/bvtvanimalwomb15.xml and here:

http://forums.digiguide.com/topic.asp?id=27454&subject=Extraordinary+Animals+in+The+Womb+showing+on+Channel+4

and on many other webpages.

Extract:

""In Extraordinary Animals in the Womb, the embryonic journeys of four very remarkable animals are brought to life as they develop from conception to birth. The shark, whose cannibalistic embryos will eat their own siblings to survive; the emperor penguin, whose egg-bound chicks must battle the coldest weather on the planet; the kangaroo, whose underdeveloped foetus will undergo an exceptionally premature birth; and the parasitic wasp - whose larvae must hijack and exploit the body of another creature.

Filming across three continents, and making use of the latest HD camera technology, the Animals in the Womb team swam with pregnant sharks and witnessed up close the torment of parasitised caterpillars. Groundbreaking photography takes us inside the pouch of a kangaroo, and remarkable scans and special effects reveal 14 half-metre young inside the womb of a wild shark."

The miniscule joey interested me the most - blind, so tiny, so red, so delicate, so vulnerable and dependent. - You may wonder why it is red. - This is because its skin is extremely thin and what you are really seeing is its blood vessels through the transparent window of the ultra-thin skin. - It so obviously needs a safe place in which to feed and grow (the mother's pouch with the teat) till its skin, etc are strong enough to be exposed to the 'outside' world and its hazards and stresses.

There are some similarities, you may be surprised to learn, between the joey and a morbidly obese steroid victim! - The fatter anyone becomes, the thinner their skin becomes and so the closer to the surface are the blood vessels and so the redder their skin appears - red face, red hands, red arms, red-skinned legs, red or purple feet, etc - swollen with distended veins, swollen with pain, vulnerable to knocks, harmed by pressure, easily bruised and further damaged...

But unlike the joey, obese people have no chance of building up the strength and thickness/firmness of their skin: - once depleted, the skin's thickness cannot return. - These problems are worsened by dieting. - Dieting, by which I mean eating less food/fewer calories than the body requires in the mistaken belief that this will reduce obesity, is EXTREMELY HARMFUL. - The skin gets very much thinner very much faster, and the blood vessel walls get very much thinner very much faster too. - This obviously causes the blood vessel walls to be overstretched and stressed and much weaker, which results in them becoming distended (fluid retention) with extra fluid, so causing WEIGHT GAIN, NOT WEIGHT LOSS.

To reduce excess weight you need to reduce the fluid retention that has caused the weight gain. - So you need to avoid dieting/'slimming' and instead concentrate on avoiding salt and salty food, because that extra fluid in the veins is extra sodium and water, and to lose some of it you need to reduce your sodium intake.

When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels and elsewhere). This condition is also known as sodium retention, water retention, fluid retention, salt sensitivity or oedema. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

'Slimming' will not make you thinner; it will make your SKIN thinner! - You need to cut down on salt to lose weight.

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

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

Over the counter version of slimming pill, Alli, is going to be made available from pharmacists.

Slimming pill to be available from chemist

From the Telegraph:

"GlaxoSmithKline has applied for a lower dose of its anti-obesity drug Xenical to be made available under the supervision of chemists.

The new version of the drug, called Alli, has a lower dose of the active ingredient orlistat and has been available without prescription in the US since June.

People taking it three times a day for 12 weeks were twice as likely to have lost at least 10 per cent of their bodyweight, but experts warn the weight may creep back on once the course is finished."

"Xenical works by stopping the body absorbing fat from the diet, but reported side effects include headaches, diarrhoea, abdominal discomfort, depression and fatigue."

There is no need at all to take this pharmaceutical junk with its unpleasant side-effects in order to lose excess weight. Nor is it necessary to diet to lose weight. - Dieting is harmful and ineffective. - Overweight people can lose weight fast and completely safely by cutting out salt and salty food.

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

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

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

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

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

More high sodium foods to avoid if you want to lose weight

• bacon
• ham
• hamburgers
• beefburgers
• Cornish pasties
• Spam
• pâté
• potted meat
• most shop-bought sandwiches
• ready-made sandwiches
• pitta bread
• pikelets
• bagels
• crisps and other savoury snacks (Look for reduced-salt crisps and unsalted crisps.)
• bread (Warburton's and some other manufacturers make some healthy bread with lower sodium content.)
• cornflakes and most other breakfast cereals (check on pack)
• pizzas
• digestive biscuits
• smoked salmon
• smoked mackerel
• kippers

Remember - so-called 'slimming' foods are often high in salt! - You will not lose weight by eating foods high in salt, however low in fat they are!

Most sodium we eat is from salt (sodium chloride), but sodium is also present in MSG (monosodium glutamate), in baking powder, in bicarbonate of soda and in a few other compounds which are sometimes added to food.

The slimming drug, Rimonabant/Acomplia, an appetite suppressant, causes depression and other adverse symptoms, and is not much good for losing weight.

Study links slimming drug to depression

Extract from the Telegraph:

"The safety of a slimming drug taken by tens of thousands of people in UK has been questioned after new research linked it to a 40 per cent increase in the risk of depression.

Rimonabant, marketed as Acomplia, is an appetite surpressant prescribed on the NHS for people who are obese.

Research carried out in Denmark involving records of 4105 people found that although the patients on the drug lost 4.7kg (10lbs) more than those on a dummy pill, they were much more likely to suffer psychological problems.

Patients on rimonabant were 2.5 times more likely to stop taking their medication due to depression and were three times more likely to stop because of anxiety.

The Danish research is published in The Lancet medical journal accompanies an editorial by Australian experts saying the study 'raises major questions about the safety of rimonabant in obese people'.

In 2006 over one million prescriptions were written for obesity drugs in England alone."

The objective of an appetite suppressant drug is to get the person taking it to eat less food/fewer calories than their body requires. If it succeeds in this objective - getting someone to eat less food than their body requires - it should be no surprise that the person feels depressed. - You, too, would probably feel pretty miserable if you were eating less food than your body required. - Eating less food than your body requires? - Go figure! - It's not likely to do you any good, is it? - Dieting makes you tired, cold, hungry - and depressed. - It doesn't make you slim...

It's easy for obese people to lose weight without any adverse side-effects if they give up dieting completely, and concentrate instead on giving up eating salt/sodium and salty food. Obese people who do this seriously lose about a stone (14 pounds) in the first month! - One woman, Joyce Barnard, lost 5 stone (70 pounds) in a year by doing this! - She completely stopped sprinkling salt onto her meals and she used LoSalt instead of ordinary salt in her cooking. - That is all she did. - You'd never get weight loss like that by using appetite suppressants!

I think it's scandalous that the NHS is wasting money and damaging people's health by paying for this pharmaceutical junk to be prescribed to innocent patients.

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

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

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

Britain: one in three primary-school leavers is overweight, - The cause of obesity in children is misinformation by the 'experts'.

One in three primary-school leavers overweight - Telegraph

Extracts:

1) "One in three children leaving primary school in some parts of Britain are overweight, it has emerged.

New figures released by the Department of Health have also shown that one quarter of children are already obese when they start school before the age of five.

The statistics form part of a nationwide survey of children’s weight which is currently being carried out by the Government.

Figures released by 10 primary care trusts under the Freedom of Information Act have prompted experts to fear that the obesity epidemic has been grossly underestimated.

The findings suggest the Government may not meet its target of stopping the increase in obesity among under-11s by 2010. "

2) "The research comes as a poll for high-street supermarket Sainsbury’s found that weight-conscious teenage girls are not eating enough calories for their age group.

It revealed just over a third of 13 to 18-year-old girls are on diets or have dieted recently and 45 per cent eat less than 1,200 calories per day, which is below the recommended intake.

Only 14 per cent of the teenaged boys surveyed admitted to dieting but a quarter consumed fewer than 800 calories per day - as little as one third of their recommended daily amount."

The second extract provides the explanation for this increasing problem of obesity - namely the continued incorrect advice that 'experts' give about how to reduce obesity. The advice is based on the assumption - unsupported by scientific evidence - that obesity is caused by overeating and can be remedied by eating less, i.e. dieting. - This is catastrophically harmful advice because, as you have just read, it leads to obese people eating insufficient food - particularly damaging to children.

In fact, obesity is caused not by overeating, but by fluid retention, and fluid retention is exacerbated by 'slimming'/dieting...

To reduce fluid retention, and thereby reduce excess weight/obesity, it is necessary to cut down on salt/sodium intake. Eating plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables makes weight loss faster, because these are foods rich in potassium, and potassium helps to remove sodium and the water that accompanies it from the body - by way of the urine.

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense 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/.html (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

Obesity in children: - http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

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.

Skin cancer is the fastest growing UK disease.

Skin cancer is fastest growing UK disease - Telegraph

Extract:

"Doctors issued a stark warning to holidaymakers yesterday as they revealed that skin cancer was now the fastest growing form of the disease in the UK.

Cases have "spiralled" in the past 10 years but thousands are still willing to risk getting a tan on holiday, experts at Cancer Research UK said.Skin cancer is just one of the "lifestyle cancers" that are on the rise as Britons risk their health by sunbathing, drinking too much and eating a poor diet.

The number of cases of the most dangerous skin cancer, malignant melanoma, has risen by 43 per cent in the last decade. In 2004 there were 8,939 cases diagnosed, compared with 5,783 in 1995, the Cancer Research figures showed.

Since the mid-1980s rates have doubled in women and tripled in men but a recent survey showed that even though most sunbathers knew the risks they still intended to get burnt on holiday."

"Other lifestyle cancers of the mouth, womb and kidney have all risen as alcohol consumption has increased and the obesity -epidemic has got worse over the past 10 years.

Mouth cancer, which is caused by drinking alcohol and chewing or smoking tobacco, has increased by 25 per cent in the last decade to 4,769 cases and womb cancer, which is linked to obesity, has risen by more than a fifth in 10 years. Smoking and being overweight increase the risk of kidney cancer, the number of new cases of which has risen by 10 per cent in the last decade to hit 7,044 cases in 2004.

Overweight and obese women are twice as likely to develop womb cancer due to hormone disturbances in their bodies, and cases have risen from 5,018 in 1995 to 6,438 in 2004.

Half of all cancers could be prevented with a healthier lifestyle, experts have said.

Lucy Morrish, statistical information manager at Cancer Research UK, who compiled the figures, said: "While incidence rates for some cancers have fallen over the past decade, others are rising and many of these could be prevented if people avoided excessive sun exposure, smoking and obesity and limited their alcohol intake.""

If only people were to be told the truth! - Obesity is the major factor in most cancers, and tragically the wrong information/advice has been given by doctors for decades and continues to be given. - Obesity is not caused by overeating; it is caused by fluid retention - and fluid retention can easily, rapidly and safely be reduced by eating less salt/sodium. - Dieting is unnecessary for losing excess weight; indeed, dieting is counterproductive and actually HARMFUL.

Because doctors have been telling people and continue to tell people that to lose weight you have to eat less/eat fewer calories, overweight people keep trying to do this. The result is that they are eating insufficient food and so as well as the excess weight being harmful in itself, their inadequate food intake reduces their immunity still further and so the bad advice causes a snowball of increasingly poor health is the doctors' patients/victims.

IF YOU ARE OBESE, PLEASE GIVE UP 'SLIMMING'! - AVOID EATING SALT OR SALTY FOOD AND EAT GOOD HEALTHY MEALS WITH PLENTY OF FRUIT AND FRESH VEGETABLES. - THIS WILL REDUCE THE FLUID RETENTION AND SO YOU WILL LOSE EXCESS FLUID AND THEREFORE LOSE EXCESS WEIGHT.

IF YOU HAVE GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE FAT RETENTION TOO, THEN DO NOT EAT A LOW FAT DIET (HARMFUL AND KNOWN TO LEAD TO MANY CASES OF DEPRESSION). - TO REDUCE FAT RETENTION, YOU NEED TO INCREASE YOUR INTAKE OF CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM AND VITAMIN D. - See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/search/label/calcium and BBC webpage about calcium from The Truth About Food series of programmes

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/.html
(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.

A daily slimming pill, Acomplia, taken by about 10,000 British patients may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and other psychological symptoms.

Slimming pill 'linked to thoughts of suicide' - Telegraph

The pill is rimonabant, also known as Acomplia and as Zimulti.

Extract:

"A daily slimming pill taken by about 10,000 British patients may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and other psychological symptoms.

The drug rimonabant, sold as Acomplia in the UK and available only on prescription, was hailed as a "wonder drug" when it was approved for use in Europe last year.

Research suggested almost four in 10 overweight people who take it lose 10 per cent of their body weight.

However, it emerged yesterday that the drug was unlikely to be approved in America because of fears over the possible psychological effects on users. Dr Amy Egan, an American medical officer, told experts advising the Food and Drug Administration that medical trials had suggested that patients taking the drug report side-effects including depression and anxiety."

There is no need at all to take slimming pills to lose excess weight. - You can lose weight fast, safely and easily, without hunger, by simply cutting out salt and salty food from what you eat. - This reduces fluid retention, which is the cause of obesity.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on ~Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Low-strength version of the prescription-only diet pill Xenical soon to be on sale over the counter, expected to cost the same - about £1.40 a day

Over the counter slimming pill on sale - Telegraph

Extract:

"A slimming pill which helps people lose 50 per cent more weight than through dieting alone goes on sale over the counter in stores in the US tomorrow.

The Alli capsules are the first of their kind to be sold without prescription and could be available in Britain by the end of next year.

One taken with every meal could result in a 12-stone woman shedding more than half a stone, or one dress size, within four months.

Manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline intends applying for a UK licence later this year which could see it in chemists by the end of 2008."

But you can lose weight faster than this - without pills, without hunger, without counting calories, completely safely - and without paying anything at all! All you have to do is give up 'slimming' and eat plenty of good food, including plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables, but DON'T EAT ANY SALT OR SALTY FOOD! - That's the important and necessary thing - because it reduces the fluid retention which is the cause of excess weight. (If overeating were the cause of obesity then dieting would work, but as most people know, dieting doesn't work. - Reducing salt/sodium intake DOES work!)

So save your money and safeguard your health by not buying or swallowing these pills, which are unnecessary to lose weight and they do have adverse side-effects. - The only side-effects from avoiding salt are good effects...(o: - Your blood pressure will come down, you will have more energy and vitality, you will be more mentally alert, you will sleep better, you will be less likely to have a heart attack or stroke, etc.

Lose weight by eating less salt! 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.)
If you need more help or information you can contact me from my website.

Cadbury hope to develop a low-calorie chocolate. - But of course it won't make you any slimmer. - That's the Calorie Myth...)o:

Cadbury plans low-calorie chocolate - Telegraph

Extract:

"Chocolate lovers who want to watch their waistline could be in for a treat.

Cadbury Schweppes is working on a low-fat, reduced-sugar Dairy Milk, which it hopes to launch as part of a push into the low-calorie confectionery market.

In addition, Britain's biggest sweet maker is this week launching Maynards Wine Gums Light, with half the sugar and 30 per cent fewer calories than in a standard packet. Low-calorie Bassett's Allsorts will follow this year.

The company hopes that these will be only a precursor of what will become the "Holy Grail" of sweet makers: a low-calorie chocolate bar that tastes no different to a normal slab of milk chocolate.

Tony Bilsborough, from Cadbury, said yesterday: "We have scientists in laboratories working on it. It is the Holy Grail of all chocolate manufacturers."

The market for low-calorie chocolate has grown across Europe as young women, in particular, try to reduce their calorie intake, but are not prepared to cut back on snacks.

The recommended calorie intake for a woman is 2,000 calories a day."

BUT reducing calorie intake does not reduce obesity and is usually harmful. See Biggest ever study shows that diets do not work

Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. These medications cause sodium and water retention. Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. Avoid convenience meals/processed food because these are usually very high in salt. Try to cook from scratch with fresh ingredients. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and often extremely harmful.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and
people vulnerable to salt
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Deny surgery to obese people, says poll.

Deny surgery to obese, says poll - Guardian

This would be very wrong - very, very unjust - because obesity is not caused by overeating!

Here is an extract from my 'political' page. - I urge you to read ALL the page, right to the end. - You will then have a good idea of where the responsibility/blame lies for the present 'obesity epidemic'; it lies squarely with the professions who are extremely highly paid precisely to prevent this sort of health catastrophe - medics, politicians, etc.

"Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Contributing to the increase in obesity we have the widespread prescribing of steroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, and the failure of doctors to adhere to the protocols connected with the prescribing and monitoring of steroids. But pre-eminent, in my opinion, is the catastrophically damaging calorie-reduction advice that continues to be given despite such a wealth of evidence that it is bad advice.

Another possible factor is the increase in the amount of oestrogen in the water table.

Salt produces obesity only in vulnerable people, i.e.

1. People whose veins are weak because of immaturity (babies, children).

2. People whose veins are weak because of steroids, HRT, amitriptyline or certain other prescribed drugs, too readily prescribed, often in very high dose.

3. People whose natural hormone levels are abnormally high (pregnant women, PMT sufferers).

4. 'Slimmers' - People whose blood vessel walls have been weakened by 'slimming' - i.e. eating insufficient food.

Most medics do not understand what sodium retention is, and most are unaware that tablets they prescribe are causing this extremely damaging condition. They tend to blame obesity, mistakenly, on overeating. Similarly, most nutritionists and dieticians do not realise that obese people need to lose excess water to lose weight, and that excess water held in the body will not be affected by cutting calories. There can scarcely be anyone who has not heard hundreds of times over the message that overweight people should cut calories and cut down on fat and sugar. They have been conditioned to believe this. They do not need to be told it another thousand times.The advice from the nutritionists is WRONG. It does not work! This nation HAS reduced its intake of fat and sugar for some years now. With what result? Ever increasing obesity levels! Obese people need to concentrate on reducing salt, not calories.

Since the summer of 2001 I have been writing to MPs, to medical people, to journalists, to nutritionists and others, urging that suitable warnings be printed on packs of the tablets so that the destruction of more lives can be prevented. I have written hundreds of letters. The warning label should say something like:

DO NOT EAT SALT, OR FOODS CONTAINING SALT, WHILE TAKING THIS MEDICATION, BECAUSE IT COULD CAUSE FLUID RETENTION RESULTING IN MASSIVE WEIGHT GAIN.

To the best of my knowledge, no action has been taken. Nor is the public being told the truth about weight gain and weight loss. The best way to lose weight is to concentrate on eating less sodium and more potassium. (A book, written a few years ago by a hospital professor, about the health dangers of salt, makes no mention of steroid victims and specifically states, incorrectly, that HRT does not cause a salt problem!)"

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

WeightWatchers? - Their suggestions for sandwich fillings don't look very healthy to me! - Nor are those sandwiches likely to help you lose weight!

This is the webpage I've been looking at - http://www.weightwatchers.co.uk/util/art/index_art.aspx?art_id=30171&tabnum=1&sc=3023&subnav=What%e2%80%99s+Cooking

If you look at it, you will see that the suggested fillings tend to have half a teaspoon of salt added...)o: - That's a LOT of salt! - And that's salt in addition to the salt in the bread of the sandwiches, and most bread is highly salted. - And also, in the sandwiches containing olives, the olives suggested are "brine-cured" - that's even more high salt stuff!

WHAT VERY, VERY UNHEALTHY SANDWICHES! - Unless, of course, you're not bothered about developing high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, risking a stroke, having a heart attack, etc...

And you certainly won't lose weight eating high salt meals like that!

If you are overweight or obese, it is because you are sensitive to salt and have developed fluid retention. - The way to reduce the fluid retention is to reduce your salt/sodium intake. You will then lose some of the excess fluid by excreting it in your urine and you will, of course, lose weight by losing that excess fluid. - It is a very easy, fast and safe way to lose excess weight and you don't need to go to the expense of attending 'slimming' classes to do it...(o:

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

New stocks of its No 7 Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum, - thought to be 'anti-aging' - resulted in long queues at Boots stores across the country.

Shoppers queue for hours to buy 'elixir of youth' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Boots stores across the country were overwhelmed by middle-aged customers hungry for an anti-ageing cream that has been sold out for the past month.

More than 100 people queued outside the company's flagship store in Oxford Street waiting for its doors to open at 7am as new stocks of its No 7 Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum finally hit the shelves.

Stores in Nottingham, Manchester and Edinburgh also opened early to cope with the demand. Other branches reported long queues."

I've no doubt that creams like this are helpful, as are moisturisers, but to preserve youthful looks, the best thing to do is stop eating salt/sodium, or at any rate, to cut down on salt and salty food. - What are usually thought of as signs of aging, or diseases of aging, are actually not caused by the passing of the years at all; they are caused by sodium retention and its accompanying water retention, often coupled with dieting/'slimming', always a damaging procedure.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight fast and safely by eating less salt! 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.)

At last! - A newspaper article about fat people that does not mock them or tell them to eat less and stop being lazy!

Obesity: It's time to stop the fat attack - The Independent

Extracts:

"Myths about fatness abound. US academic Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth, debunks many of them. For instance, the idea that Americans are getting fatter because of fast food is questionable. "The heaviest consumers of fast food in this country are single men in their 20s who weigh less than the average American," says Campos.

Another common misconception is that fat people are lazy. Recent evidence from the Early Bird study in Plymouth, which is tracking the weight and activity of 300 children, found no link between how much kids do and what they weigh."

"Obesity is harmful, but so are lots of things we do to ourselves. And while obese people do harm to themselves but not to others, they do not deserve the negative press and moral vilification that is so widespread. Fatism is just about the only irrational prejudice that is still deemed acceptable. Let's get rid of it. "

Nice to see an article that is sympathetic to fat people. - But if you are fat and would like to lose weight, here is how to do it:

Give up dieting/'slimming'! - Dieting does not work and is harmful.
Eat good meals, including plenty of fruit and freshly cooked vegetables.
Lose weight by eating less salt! 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.)