The DASH study. Salt and Hypertension

I recently had occasion to visit a Cardiologist and his staff printed out twelve pages of utter nonsense unsupported by any evidence at all.

For decades every clinician, researcher and journal editor has spouted this 'conventional wisdom' that an excess consumption of salt is the cause of hypertension.. This is mere opinion, there is no proof and there is considerable evidence of its falsity.

Sugar is probably the driver of hypertension, not salt.

The DASH diet has many factors and it is possible to have people consume vastly different diets and still be considered as DASH compliant. Questioaires about a person's diet are notoriously unreliable. It is possible to confirm DASH adherence with labwork but no one has ever done that.

The DASH diet changes potassium, manganese, magnesium, fiber and other significant factors. The knee-jerk acceptance of salt intake as the cause is utterly without any foundation despite its status as a universal myth.

In one study, twelve percent of hypertensives improved with increased salt. That is a strange result for a substance that is supposed to be causative.

Why do quacks lie to me?

When I was originally transported to an ER, I don't know if the staff realized I was could over hear snippets of conversation as I faded in and our of being conscious or perhaps they simply did not care, but it was disturbing to hear 'how is this patient still alive, and 'those values are absurd, go get another test cart' and then to hear 'new instrument shows even worse values'.

Recall perhaps that this condition was brought on solely by my Primary Care doctor.

I am still dealing with considerable physical and mental deficits but the one thing that seems to have survived is my iconoclastic orientation.

Quote: Fleastiff

Why do quacks lie to me?

Because they're being mislead by
studies probably done by big
sugar. I stopped eating sugar
in 1973 because of a sugar
attack.
That same year my doctor told
me a low carb diet would kill
me and he forbade it. I lost 50
pounds and he fired me as
a patient. Doctors are only as
smart as what they're told.

Most doctors thought Atkins
should lose his license and
go to jail for telling people
carbs were killing them, in
the 70's.

I thought I would be hearing from you on this topic.

By the way, DASH is vehemently opposed to anchovies and also to sardines.

Quote: Fleastiff

I thought I would be hearing from you on this topic.

By the way, DASH is vehemently opposed to anchovies and also to sardines.

Most keto diets are in favor
of a higher salt intake because
it's one of the electrolytes.

Quote: Evenbob

I stopped eating sugar
in 1973 because of a sugar
attack.

What is that?

Sugar attack, sugar jag, etc. Profound somnolence and lethargy after consuming sugar.

Quote: Evenbob

Most keto diets are in favor
of a higher salt intake because
it's one of the electrolytes.

The key is do not overdo any one thing. Eat balanced and normal. Decades of seeing what was bad become good and what was good become bad. I'll be dead in 20 years, I am not going to make it just seem longer by cutting out salt or not allowing myself a chocolate bar here and there.

Quote: AZDuffman

or not allowing myself a chocolate bar here and there.

Chocolate is a wonderful food particularly for teenage girls. The word comes from the Aztec for "food of the Gods". It greatly diminishes the absorption of calcium and so therefore should not be taken with milk. For the elderly its a cardioprotectant.

In the 1980's I had the pleasure of being lectured by one of the world's leading nephrologists. He asked us this question.... "How much salt will a human being excrete in one day?" His answer...... barring a specific disease process occurring right now..... "however much salt he takes in!" Or do you think you are getting "saltier and saltier" every day?