"Often, these foods don't even taste particularly salty"

Speak for yourself.

This kind of thing is why preventative medicine is so hard to do, and why the public is so confused about eating choices.

Comparative treatment studies also suffer from this kind of contradiction. So much is dependent on the construction or the study and participants.

Take fat, for instance. Other than olive oil, which seems to get a universal blessing, is butter better/worse than saturated fat from corn/other plant oils?

How about diets? Low Protein, High Protein, High Carb, No Carb?

How many MDs would tell you that studies show that decreasing salt intake will kill you faster? Why wouldn't they?: it contradicts the received wisdom of decades, and they just don't believe it.

Does this mean I can use regular soy sauce instead of lite soy sauce on my stir fry? Or only if I use olive oil instead of canola?

Anonymous, above, is me.

Wonder if this op ed is in any way connected to the recent Center for Consumer Freedom campaign sending salt shakers to journalists?

I have been posting this for a long time. Of course salt is not bad for us. We need salt and the government’s stupid guide lines without explanation have led to occasional dehydration and perhaps death among certain worker (e.g. roofers).

We do not know what is a healthy diet beyond that we need a minimum intake of certain vitamins, minerals and amino acids. That is it! Sorry the debate of fatty/ sugary food/fiber/fruits and vegetables etc. has little empirical evidence.

See:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/281/5379/898
The (Political) Science of Salt
Gary Taubes

Three decades of controversy over the putative blood pressure benefits from salt reduction are demonstrating how the demands of good science clash with the pressures of public health policy. Early studies seemed to support the value of salt reduction, leading to the current recommendation that everyone limit salt intake to no more than 6 grams a day, four less than our current average. But as the studies have improved, the apparent benefits have diminished, while the debate has grown more vitriolic. Advocates of the public-health orthodoxy of salt reduction have often cited only those studies that bolster their position while criticizing the motives of their opponents. (Also see the Perspective on p. 933 by David McCarron, a member of a research team that published an analysis of a national health and nutrition database in Science in 1984 suggesting that salt is harmless.)

Actually, as my physician wife is salting her pizza/chips she tells me that there is a very narrow window of a certain kind of hypertensive that needs to worry about salt intake, and that her blood pressure is fine.

Also, it's good for Effective Circulating Volume or some such thing.

Pretty sweeping judgment to make based on one op-ed.

For one, many doctors and scientists think it's the ration of salt to potassium in the diet that matters, not just the amount of salt.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-sodium23-2009feb23,0,7924170.story

And two, doctors know well that more salt means more water retention, which raises blood pressure. That kind of dose/response relationship is fundamental to epidemiology, and shouldn't be dismissed...a number of good studies in Scandanavia, for example, found strong correlation between reduced salt intake and cardio-vascular health.

"salting pizza and chips."

i dont know if i would do that,
but i guess every body is different.

the way salt works in the body is very complicated.....i think we hardly know that much about how our bodies work.
it seems we would have to know the secrets of the universe to really understand the chemistry of the body.

sometimes, i think, when we feel well and energetic and in good spirits, and our tests indicate that we are in our normal range....our body/selves must be in harmony.
one tries to stay in that place of harmony as best as one can.

just as we try to take good care of the things we love....to the best of our intentions, try to eat and drink in a way that is kind to body.
we are only renters.

That too Jacqueline...as a landscaper dehydration is a constant worry, but there are days when this Texas heat is so bad that even Gatorade and other salt sources lose their effectiveness. Oddly enough, what does work in those dire circumstances is to eat a pickle---while there is a lot of salt in pickles I believe its the vinegar that somehow turns things around (if other salt sources stop working why would the salt in pickles be any different)...I read something about the Romans providing vinegar for their workers but haven't researched it any further. So yes, human body chemistry is complicated and every body is unique in its processes as well.

well, as a bonafide salt-a-holic, i for one welcome our salty overlords. that said, pretty much all of my salt comes out of the shaker, as i don't eat a lot of processed foods, and reading the above excerpt - 6 grams?

holy moly that sounds like a lot to me. and i'm someone who has been known to turn an empty salt&vinegar potato chip bag inside out and lick the salt off of it...

ps: my blood pressure is on the low side of normal...something like 110 over 70 and always has been...so, no, i don't worry and never have.

it is amazing that other animals figure all of this out without referring to the latest medical research.

i have a wonderful book, called, "temelpakh." the medicinal traditions of southern california tribes were known orally, and written down a few years ago in this book.
teas made from bark, topical compresses from leaves, seeds and grasses..for everything from snake bites to eye infections to stomach ailments. and all from the indigenous plants.
i guess it was once a garden of eden.

i wish i could draw a cartoon of a mountain lion, with his paws tucked under his nose, reading a copy of "nature" magazine..... "new studies on the sodium and iron content in the meat of very young rabbits."

I really believe that these social networks will have a huge impact on what we can accomplish as groups, it'll help us be very organized and communicate.