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+--- Thread: The 'War On Salt' -- Bad Policy Based on Bad Science? (/thread-2469.html)
The 'War On Salt' -- Bad Policy Based on Bad Science? - C C - Jun 6, 2016
http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/03/the-war-on-salt-is-bad-policy-based-on-b
EXCERPT: The Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the few openly authoritarian organizations functioning in the United States, once sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for refusing to regulate Americans' salt intake. No worries. This week, the Obama administration finally embraced CSPI's junk science and allowed the FDA to set new "guidelines" to "nudge" companies into treating a perfectly harmless ingredient as if it were a dangerous chemical. [...] But let's concede for a moment and say that sodium is killing you. [...]
[...] But, setting all that aside, what happens if salt isn't even bad for you? What if CSPI is wrong, as usual? What if the FDA is pushing flawed science and compelling companies to engage in practices that will do nothing to improve public health? What if these practices end up hurting people?
Not long ago, a meta-analysis of seven studies in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that reduced sodium intake lowers the risk for strokes, heart attacks or death for people with normal or high blood pressure. Some studies, in fact, found that salt has beneficial effects. A study by The Journal of the American Medical Association, which followed 3,700 healthy people for eight years, found similar benefits.
A couple of years ago, Scientific American reported that "meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure."
Obviously, there is still disagreement over what these studies mean....