Is Salt Really That Bad For You?
Salt, how do we hate thee, let me count the ways! Sometimes the public is so quick to get on the nutrition bandwagon and demonize a perceived common enemy, that common sense and due diligence are often shown the door (case in point: our fear of saturated fat, cholesterol, … I could go on, but those are rants for some other day). Today we shall talk about salt. Yes, that very same white powder which was once apparently given to the Gods as an offering, without which food is often tasteless, heck, without which we could not even survive.
Today it is not far from the truth if I say salt is close to being public enemy #1. With the sodium content prominently displayed on all food-nutrition labels, salt is the bane of many a food-processor who just wants to preserve the food until it gets to you and wants to add some flavor while at it. Before you think I am all for excessive salt consumption, let me make it clear that anything in excess is bound to create an imbalance in our bodies that will then have to be taken care of, a process that uses up valuable resources and could lead to other complications. But to vilify one particular ingredient to the extent it is being done these days is overkill and probably incorrect as well.
“The neverending war on the white stuff” posted on Spiked-Online discusses the campaign against salt waged by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA). By 2012, the FSA would like to bring the salt consumption of UK residents down to just 6g a day. Almost 80 categories of foods like bread and cereals have been affected by this new mandate.
As can be expected, the food manufacturers are up in arms over these new rules. Yes, the primary concern is that the foods being packaged with less salt will have a lot less appeal to consumers. But there is something else: the relationship between salt consumption and our health is not even conclusive! From Spiked:
When it comes to actual research on the effects of salt reduction, the results are inconsistent and any benefits are generally very small. A review in the British Medical Journal in 2002 concluded: ‘Intensive interventions, unsuited to primary care or population prevention programmes, provide only small reductions in blood pressure and sodium excretion, and effects on deaths and cardiovascular events are unclear. Advice to reduce sodium intake may help people on antihypertensive drugs to stop their medication while maintaining good blood pressure control.’ In other words, if you’ve already got high blood pressure, salt reduction might help, but for everyone else it is probably pointless. [Spiked]
And irrespective of what excessive salt could or could not do to our bodies, regular consumption of salt is not only OK, it is actually vital to our very survival. Our bodies are certainly capable or handling any little extra quantities of salt we might unknowingly consume (no one I know would consume spoonfuls of salt – our mouths pretty much makes sure we eat things in the right quantities and proportions). There is even a theory that our mouths react to salt in a favorable way because from an evolutionary point of view it was known to be good for health.
As the article concludes, while politicians try to “save us from ourselves” by giving us one mandate after another and invading our privacy with faulty research, it’s up to us to read more, get educated and not give into the hype.
[Via Lew Rockwell]
Related Posts:
How To Deal With A Slowing Metabolism As You Age
It’s well known that as you age, unless you take active steps to remain healthy and fit, you tend to gradually put on more fat and lose muscle mass. What is not so well known, however, is what those specific preventive steps really are.
True, a healthful diet and frequent, well-planned exercise can help thwart the inevitable drop in metabolism, but for a few more specifics, you can turn to a recent health-item on the MSNBC Health site, Avoiding the midlife diet crisis.
Since this slowing metabolism is a slow process, the author claims you can stay one step ahead of it by making gradual changes yourself, as you age. Some fo the key points raised are:
- Reducing portion sizes: Did you know, on average, women need 100 fewer calories at age 40 than at age 20?
- Keep your brain sharp: Diet is key here with a focus on fruits and vegetables.
For more tips including ideas for keeping a stable blood sugar level and choosing the right kinds of beverages to keep you well-hydrated, check out the entire article and take those steps to stay young in mind and body!
Related Posts:
- QT #4: Eat more often
- Starvation Response: Why drastic calorie reduction does not work
- A Few Techniques For Stress Relief
Moderate Exercise Does Not Make Your Body Burn Fat For Hours
How often have you heard someone at the gym or on a late-night infomercial say that working out will help you burn fat for hours after you stop? Too many times to keep count? Well, Edward Melanson, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, Denver would beg to differ and he presents his views in Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews.
WebMD reports on these findings. The problem is that moderate exercise, especially that doen for less than an hour, has little effect on the so called “24-hour oxidation of fat”:
“It’s not that exercise doesn’t burn fat,” Melanson says. “It’s just that we replace the calories. Exercise increases the capacity to burn more fat. But if you replace those calories, that is lost.” [WebMD]
To test the level of fat burning after exercise, Melnason’s team used 28 participants in a study. Of these, 10 were lean and endurance-trained, 10 were lean but untrained, while the remaining 8 were obese and untrained. Their exercise involved riding a stationary bike for about an hour burning 400 calories. After the exercise, while calories burned were indeed higher for all the test subjects, the 24-hour test revealed that instead of fat, it was carbohydrates that were being burned.
The reason for this, according to Melanson, is that what we eat after an exercise affects the kind of macro-nutrient our body uses first for fuel:
For instance, eating as little as 240 calories of carbohydrate during the hour before exercise can reduce fat burning during exercise, and the boost in fat burning during exercise can be “blunted” for up to six hours after eating a meal, says Melanson, citing other research. [WebMD]
These disappointing results are just for moderate exercisers who workout for an hour or less. High intensity exercisers or those practising interval training are bound to notice much better results. Still, the bottom line is simply this: if you are trying to lose weight, it’s dangerous to assume you can eat whatever you want or inwhatever quantity you want, simply because you have “done your exercises for the day”.
You cannot change the laws of science: take in more calories than you expend, and you will gain weight. No question about it.
Related Posts:
- Fat Fiction
- Quick, Calorie-Burning Exercises
- Gallup Survey: America is getting heavier but exercising less
New Guidelines For Weight-Gain During Pregnancy
For the first time since 1990, an Institute of Medicine (IOM)’s group of doctors and other nutrition experts have released guidelines for how much weight a woman should gain during pregnancy. The WebMD article “Pregnancy Weight Gain: New Guidelines” describes the various metrics released by the IOM regarding the right range of values for weight gain by women of different initial weights:
During pregnancy, many women gain “substantially more than we would like,” IOM committee chairwoman Kathleen Rasmussen, ScD, PhD, tells WebMD. “It is important for women to gain within [the new guidelines] and if possible, it’s important for women to begin pregnancy at a good weight,” says Rasmussen, who is also a Cornell University nutrition professor. [WebMD]
The restrictions are strict enough, that the recommendations even include the advise to delay pregnancy until a healthy weight has been achieved. Overweight women have a greater tendency to suffer problems during pregnancy and complications during the actual birthing process (usually because of heavier babies):
“The risk for the baby is being born too large, which can result in birth injury for the baby or may result in a cesarean section for the mother,” Rasmussen says. “The risks for the mother of gaining beyond the guidelines are risk for cesarean section or risk for excessive weight retention postpartum.” [WebMD]
The original article contains a lot of specific numbers and guidelines and is bound to be useful either to you or someone you know. Do check it out.
According to the released weight-ranges, a woman of normal pre-pregnancy weight should gain just about 25-35 pounds for a single-baby and about 37-54 pounds for twins. Literally, the only condition that doctors don’t have is to lose weight during pregnancy which is always a no-no (even for women who were obese before pregnancy).
As for the whole “Eating for two” myth, the doctors in the group are quick to debunk it:
“I think people still feel like pregnancy is fair game,” Goist says. “You only need 300 extra calories per day to actually maintain a pregnancy.”
So if you think eating for two means doubling your calories, forget it.
“If you think about the normal diet of maybe 1,800-2,000 calories, depending on the size of the person, 300 extra calories is a sixth of that. So that’s barely like eating anything,” Goist says.[WebMD]
Related Posts:
- Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines for Cancer Prevention
- Being Strict With Childrens’ Diet Will Not Make Them Fat
- Even Teenagers Risk Heart Disease By Gaining Weight
Being Strict With Childrens’ Diet Will Not Make Them Fat
That’s right. It was actually believed that if parents are over-strict with the eating habits of their kids then those same kids would rebel, overeat and become big fat adults. Uh…. not true! Science Daily reports that a recent study in the journal Obesity shows that such maternal control of a child’s eating habits might merely be a response to the increase in weight of the child.
Almost 800 children were studied at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development with an equal representation of boys and girls:
Child heights and weights were obtained at ages 4, 7 and 9 and changes in body mass index (BMI) were measured between 4-7 years and 7-9 years. Maternal feeding practices were measured at each age interval by asking mothers the question, “Do you let your child eat what he/she feels like eating?” [ScienceDaily]
Absolutely no relationship could be conclusively derived between maternal control of a child’s eating habits and the child’s actual weight gain although it was determined that mothers probably noticed a girl’s weight gain much more quickly than a similar weight gain by a boy.
While the actual form of control exercised could vary and the best way to enforce good eating habits is still widely debated, the study concluded there was nothing inherently wrong in this approach:
Based on these findings, the researchers say restrictive feeding practices may actually be necessary for some children to help regulate their food intake, promote healthier eating habits and limit excessive weight gain. “There has been some concern about the negative impact of restrictive feeding practices and that we should be more lax and let the child determine how much, when and what to eat. However, some degree of control may not be harmful and may actually help certain children maintain their weight,” [ScienceDaily]
So it looks like as far as the eating habits of children go, paretns still maintain primary responsibility in controlling the type and quantity of the food and such restrictions will not directly lead to obesity later on in the child’s life.
Related Posts:
- Building Blocks of Childrens Nutrition: A free booklet
- World Diabetes Day: An urgent wake-up call
- 15 Best Diet Tips From The Experts At WebMD
