The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good! by McDougall John

Author:McDougall, John [McDougall, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2012-05-07T22:00:00+00:00

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For the Love of Salt

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The reason you may believe these two added ingredients represent the core of culinary evil has more to do with marketing than with science. Scapegoating salt and sugar deflects attention from the real problems: meat, dairy, fats, oils, and processed foods.

FOR THE LOVE OF SALT, SHOULD I DIE?

Sodium restriction is the most widely publicized, nonmedicinal recommendation for preventing heart disease and stroke. This advice is based mostly on older research and largely reflects studies involving extreme changes in sodium intake, such as reducing sodium to less than 500 milligrams per day in order to lower blood pressure.1

Has this recommendation made any difference in the average person’s health? Not according to recent research and careful analysis of the data. Why? First, almost no one has been able to follow this advice because a low-salt diet simply is not palatable. People would rather risk illness and death than make this kind of sacrifice. If handfuls of costly blood pressure—lowering pills will allow them to get their salt back and avoid a bland-tasting diet, swallow them they will. The second reason is that reducing salt consumption is of little medical benefit and may even be hazardous to your health.2

The major medical concern about salt is that it raises blood pressure, and high blood pressure—more than 140/90 millimeters of mercury (mmHg)—is a risk factor for heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease. Randomized clinical trials, however, show that reducing high sodium intake by an average of 1,725 milligrams (a teaspoon and a half of salt) to 2,300 milligrams per day, the current USDA recommendation, lowers the systolic blood pressure (the top number in your blood pressure reading) by 1 to 5 points and the diastolic (bottom number) by 0.6 to 3 points.3,4 On the McDougall Diet, with no limitation of the amount of salt added to foods at the table, the average reduction for people starting out with this level of blood pressure (140/90 mmHg or greater) is 15 points systolic and 13 points diastolic in just 7 days. This is especially remarkable considering that in almost all cases, blood pressure medications are stopped on the first day of my 10-day live-in program. This profound change in blood pressure is due to the overall impact of a healthy diet that is low in fat, animal protein, and calories, and high in potassium, dietary fiber, and carbohydrates.5 These healthy dietary components improve the health of the blood vessels and overall circulation, significantly lowering elevated blood pressure as a result.

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