Overcoming Bias

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Forget Salt

www.overcomingbias.com

Forget Salt

Robin Hanson
Nov 15, 2011
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Forget Salt

www.overcomingbias.com

From May:

A new JAMA study finds a strong correlation: the third of folks who eat the least salt die over three times as often as the third of folks who eat the most salt. (more)

Now:

[A] new analysis … conducted …. for the Cochrane Collaboration … analyzed 167 studies conducted between 1950 and 2011 that compared people who consumed low-sodium versus high-sodium diets. Low-sodium diets did cut blood pressure levels in people with high and normal blood pressure. … But it also significantly increased other risk factors for heart disease, such as cholesterol levels, triglycerides, adrenaline and renin, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Hypertension. “These results do not support that sodium reduction may have net beneficial effects in a population of Caucasians.” (more; study)

The official response is no change in official advice:

U.S. health officials recommend that adults get no more than 2,300 mg of sodium daily. … “We eat a lot of sodium — way too much — and I don’t think it’s going to hurt anybody to lower sodium in the current American diet,” Penny Kris-Etherton, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association [said]. (more)

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Forget Salt

www.overcomingbias.com
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