Tag Archives: salt
FDA Issues Guidance on Dietary Salt
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th October 2021The FDA has issued guidance about dietary salt intake. Their advice needs to be taken with a grain of salt – sorry, I couldn’t resist. The summary below conveys their intent and message. The whole report is below and can be downloaded. This guidance supports the goal of reducing sodium intake as recommended by scientific…
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Salt and Cardiovascular Disease
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th September 2021We’ve known for a long time that some people are salt sensitive – ie, when salt is ingested in amounts greater than required to maintain homeostasis blood pressure rises as does the likelihood of stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. The remainder of humanity can safely ingest large amounts of salt without hypertension and its associated…
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The Salinity Obsession
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th March 2018Many physicians and those charged with regulating the nation’s health have been obsessed with salt since Lot’s wife was transformed into a pillar of the stuff. On March 7, 2018 the JAMA published online a well performed study of sodium intake, the investigators used 24 hour urinary sodium excretion as a marker of intake, which documents…
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Salt Intake in Chronic Kidney Diease
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th January 2017How much salt people should eat continues to be a murky issue. A paper in the February 2017 issue of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases examines the issue of salt (actually sodium) intake on the prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic kidney diseases (CKD) stages 2-4. It is a commentary on an…
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The Vulture Has Landed
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th December 2016I’ve been out of the country for a few weeks, but am now back (see below for the gruesome details). Thus regular posting will resume. First the important stuff. If you take a cruise bring your own salt and a shaker. No cruise line I know of has decent salt shakers. They tend to use…
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Salt, Science, and Politics
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st June 2016Salt is in the news again. Thomas Frieden the head of the CDC published an article in the JAMA innocuously titled Sodium Reduction—Saving Lives by Putting Choice Into Consumers’ Hands. It more closely resembles propaganda than science. It argues that reducing dietary sodium intake to 1200 mg/day or less will lower the incidence of hypertension…
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Salt and More Salt
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd September 2014The August 14, 2014 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine contains three papers on salt intake and health. The third of these is so layered with assumptions that I won’t discuss it. I have previously written about recommendations for optimum dietary intake of salt. In 2011 the American Society of Nephrology endorsed guidelines…
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More on Salt – Medicine is Hopeless
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th May 2013A study by the the Institute of Medicine at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control has shown no benefit from sharply decreasing salt intake in preventing strokes and heart attacks even in high risk patients. You may recall that I wrote about the American Society of Nephrology’s recommendation to sharply restrict salt intake in everyone…
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New Recommendations About Dietary Salt Intake
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th February 2011For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H.L. Mencken The American Society of Nephrology has just endorsed the Dietary Guidelines issued by the US Department of Agriculture. The ASN is particularly concerned with salt intake. The Society’s complete statement on this issue is appended at the end of…
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Ban Water
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th March 2010A Brooklyn legislator has introduced a bill in the New York legislature that would ban chefs in New York from adding salt to food – he must be the same guy that designed my new toilet. Good for him. The public is as dumb as a pillar of salt and needs its enlightened lawmakers to…
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