End the oppressive war on salt!

I like salt, but as I try to be a realist about my health, a couple of years ago, I asked my doctor (a cardiologist) whether salt in my diet is dangerous. Noting that I don’t have high blood pressure, he said it would be a waste of time for me to worry about it. “But what about the innumerable claims from Top Experts that salt is dangerous?” I asked. He said he did not think there was any credible scientific evidence that it is, and while he did allow that many people were against salt, he said their views struck him as akin to “religion.” (This was a metaphor, as I don’t think there are any religious objections to salt. If so, please fill me in.)

Anyway, yesterday I was reminded of the salt issue by a news item which has to be making Mayor Bloomberg and the anti-salt fanatics absolutely livid with rage:

ATLANTA, GA — A recent report from the CDC reviewed the health benefits of reducing salt and say that, even though Americans consume too much salt, major reductions is no longer considered a substantial health hazard. The CDC even reported that reducing salt intake to below 1 tsp per day may be dangerous to your health.

Wow. What I would like to know is how did these people get to waste so much time and taxpayers’ money chasing what amounts to absolutely nothing? Where were our heroic investigative journalists when we needed them?

Hot Air weighs in:

As with so many bad public health ideas, the idea of cutting salt found its national footing thanks to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose primary public service as head of the largest city in America has been to ban and discourage as many delicious foods as possible. In 2009, Bloomberg started the National Salt Reduction Initiative, led by the New York City health department in an effort to push major food companies into “voluntary” lower-sodium standards. The goal was to reduce sodium intake by 25 percent.

There was push-back on the initiative from the scientific community here and there, but that didn’t stop Bloomberg’s strong-arming quest.

They damaged the economy and worried people unnecessarily. Too bad there’s no way to sue them.

I think the war on salt calls for some principled Ghandian civil disobedience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sCsArbBloU

MORE: The wording of the article I read yesterday seems to have changed. Rereading it in my post made no sense, especially seeing this:

even though Americans consume too much salt, major reductions is no longer considered a substantial health hazard.

Huh?

So here’s what it said yesterday (which I recall reading), and which Glenn Reynolds also quoted:

ATLANTA, GA — A recent report commissioned by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reviewed the health benefits of reducing salt intake and the take-home message is that salt, in the quantities consumed by most Americans, is no longer considered a substantial health hazard. What the CDC study reported explicitly is that there is no benefit, and may be a danger, from reducing our salt intake below 1 tsp per day. What was absent about the report was is the difference between healthy mineral salts and iodized table salt.

It may be that we’re better off with more salt than less, up to 2 or even 3 tsp per day. How did it happen that such standard medical advice drifted astray, then went un-corrected for so long?

What’s up with that? Why has it been “corrected” by being turned into gibberish?

Sounds like Bloomberg and company may have leaned on someone to render the article more incomprehensible.

The language was pulled from Fox, too, although it is still here.

If I wasn’t so slow to quote the piece, I never would have noticed the change.

The anti-salt people are powerful!