For Realistic Advice on Healthy Eating, Federal Dietary Guidelines Fall Short

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One great thing about these guidelines is that the Agriculture Department took advantage of one of the most powerful tools we have: systematic reviews of research. They synthesized most of the available research, which lets us take these seriously. A good post on this topic appears on Cornell's Evidence-Based Living Blog
http://evidencebasedliving.human.cornell.edu/2011/02/new-federal-diet-guidelines-follow-the-evidence/

EBL of NY 8:09AM February 22, 2011

" . . . there is nothing they can do about sodium that is already in their food." Fallacies like this just give people a crutch to support their unhealthy eating choices. Our food choices are within our control. Stop eating processed foods! Stop eating fast food! Choose fresh, wholesome foods. We Americans are eating ourselves to death. Literally.

LieslMary of WA 8:53PM February 13, 2011

As I noted in my post - One Big Problem Obesity - Who Will Solve - it will be by the private sector and not by physicians. The head chef of McDonald's can alter the health and well-being of more people than I could ever see in a lifetime. The same applies to sodium intake.
Most patients I see don't add extra salt.
It's already embedded in the foods we eat.
The question is when will the private sector step up?
http://davisliumd.blogspot.com/2010/05/our-big-problem-obesity-who-will-solve.html
--
Davis Liu, MD
Author of Stay Healthy, Live Longer, Spend Wisely: Making Intelligent Choices in America's Healthcare System
(available in hardcover, Kindle, and iPad / iBooks)
Website: www.davisliumd.com
Blog: www.davisliumd.blogspot.com
Twitter: davisliumd

Davis Liu, MD of CA 1:43AM February 13, 2011

Sounds reasonable. Except it's not really true. Research says that high blood pressure is largely genetic and is not influenced very much by diet. Even the journal article you cite from the New England Journal of Medicine, they cite an article that states that a reduction of 4.97 mmHg (systolic) and a reduction of 2.74 (diastolic) is achieved with a reduction in dietary sodium intake. I'm completely underwhelmed.
But you know what's more, there's also research that says that a higher sodium intake improves glucose tolerance, and that a low sodium diet impairs it, aggravating insulin resistance. This is very important for diabetics and pre-diabetics and yet they're told to eat less salt by doctors who are going by outdated and/or twisted research.
1.) They found that blood pressure could be reduced by .6 and 1.1 mmHg, systolic/diastolic respectively: "Dietary salt and hypertension: a scientific issue or a matter of faith?", by J. Ian S. Robertson MD from Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, Vol 9, Issue 1, pages 1-22, Feb 2003
2.) They found salt improves glucose tolerance: "The effect of sodium supplementation on glucose tolerance and insulin concentrations in patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus", from the American Journal of Hypertension, Vol 14, Issue 7, July 2001, pages 653-659

Tracker of TX 11:54PM February 10, 2011