Many restaurant meals contain too much salt

BBC News reports that a "survey of nearly 700 popular meals served in celebrity chef and High Street restaurants found half were high in salt - equivalent to a red traffic light label on a supermarket product. From their research, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) discovered that the 13 saltiest main meals contained more than the maximum recommended daily intake of 6g of salt."

To give Consensus Action on Salt and Health its due, it keeps on checking salt levels in various food products and in various establishments that serve meals, and it keeps on bringing out reports which draw attention to the continued high levels of salt that are potentially harmful to consumers. Professor Graham  MacGregor reminds us that "Salt puts up our blood pressure, and as a result, thousands of people die unnecessarily each year from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure. Whilst efforts have been made by foods in supermarkets to use less salt, chefs' preference for saltier foods is preventing further progress. It's clear from our survey that some chefs are not listening to their customers."

I just wish that, as well as drawing attention to high salt intake increasing blood pressure and causing premature deaths from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure, health experts would inform people that salt intake is a major factor in problems of obesity, child obesity and morbid obesity. This is especially the case for people who take or have taken prescribed steroids, HRT, antidepressants, some contraceptive medications, anti-convulsant/anti-epileptic drugs, anti-psychotics, and some other prescription drugs.

Read about how to lose weight by eating less salt and salty food.

Merck and the Vioxx saga

"The Vioxx saga continues. Nearly eight years after Merck withdrew the controversial painkiller over links to heart attacks and strokes, a new paper indicates the drugmaker hid evidence that Vioxx tripled the risk of cardiovascular death for more than three years before taking the pill off the market in 2004. During the same period, the paper in the American Heart Journal notes, Merck had regularly insisted such an increased did not exist."
Read article at pharmalot.com