On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Ben Balzer wrote:

> The food industry maintain (and fund) an artificial debate about salt so
> they can continue to add huge amounts to processed food.

Can you document this conspiracy, Ben?  The food industry would
save money by adding less salt to processed food, so they have a
financial interest in anti-salt rhetoric.

> Salt is of course linked to hypertension as the main cause of it.

Utterly unproven.  There are people, myself included, whose
hypertension is completely cured simply by reducing carbs.  I
still eat plenty of salt.  There are also plenty of people whose
hypertension is *not* resolved by reducing salt intake.

> Unfortunately then reducing salt intkae often doesn't help, particularly as
> salt intake is often not sustantially reduced due to hidden salt in
> processed foods.

Sodium content is listed on packaging in the US, and people with
hypertension (such as my mother) are put on strict low-sodium
diets.  It hasn't helped her at all.  But it's false to state
that she and others like her are not really reducing their salt
intake.

If you have data to show that most people can resolve their
hypertension by reducing salt intake, I'd like to know about it.
If not, I think it is a mistake to identify salt as the "main
cause" of hypertension.  In my view, it is far more likely that
sodium *retention* is the main cause, and that is a result of
hyperinsulinism.

Todd Moody