Professor Graham MacGregor calls for more awareness of salt intake

His concern is reported here. He said, "Making sure salt intake is kept to an absolute minimum is essential in the diets of babies and children as too much of it can prove fatal for a youngster." And he "went on to point out the wide range of illnesses which salt intake can contribute to, from kidney disease to stomach cancer and osteoporosis."

If only he would explain that eating salt and salty food is the primary cause of child obesity! And that the safe, easy way to reduce obesity is to reduce salt intake!

See Children and Obesity

Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Associated health conditions

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

Experts now say the recommended daily maximum salt intake of 6g is too high and should be lowered.

BBC News reports that experts now say the recommended daily maximum salt intake of 6g is too high and should be lowered.

Professor Graham MacGregor, said: "All the evidence now points that the target should be set lower. Getting it below 6g would give more benefit."

He said the 6g figure, set by the government's expert advisers back in 1994, had been "plucked out of the air" because the evidence at the time was not that good.

"We knew it was important to cut salt intake and we wanted a target that the food industry would accept."

Well not to put too fine a point on it, Professor MacGregor is being somewhat misleading in what he says! - Although the 6g figure was advised in 1994, for many years from 1994 on, the food industry ladled more and more and more and more salt into their highly salted convenience foods and ready meals and salty snacks and the government didn't start advising people to cut down on salt till round about 2003/4. (And if memory serves me correctly, the first advice given was max 7g a day for men and 5g a day for women. Years later it was changed to 6g a day.)

Recommendations made about salt

COMA

1 Nutritional Aspects of Cardiovascular Disease 1994 This COMA report considered the evidence for a causal relationship between the consumption of sodium and both the level of blood pressure and the rise in blood pressure with age. A statement in the report said it recommended: "A reduction in the average intake of common salt (sodium chloride) by the adult population from the current level of about 9g/day to about 6g/day. There needs to be a gradual reduction in the amount of sodium from salt added to processed food and food manufacturers, caterers, and individuals should explore and grasp the opportunity for reducing the sodium content of foods and meals." The Chief Medical Officer at that time, accepted all the recommendations in this COMA report except for the recommendation to reduce salt. The reason for this is not clear but is believed to be pressure from industry. Department of Health (1994), "Nutritional Aspects of Cardiovascular Disease", HMSO, London.

2 Dietary Reference Values 1991 This COMA report considered that: "Current sodium intakes are needlessly high and we caution against any trend towards increased intakes". It set its recommended intake for salt, as with all the other recommended intakes for nutrients, on the basis of the balance of risks and benefits, which might practically be expected to occur. The RNI for a particular population group is defined as the amount of the nutrient that is enough or more than enough for about 97% of the people in this group. The Reference Nutrient Intake (RNI) for sodium for adults was set at 1600 mg/day. This is equivalent to approximately 4g of salt, if all the sodium was present in the diet as sodium chloride. This is considerably less than the present intake of 9-12g. Department of Health (1991), "Dietary Reference values for food, energy and nutrients for the United Kingdom", HMSO, London

I wonder why The Chief Medical Officer (Kenneth Calman, I believe) in the early '90s apparently did nothing to implement the recommendation of a maximum of 4g of salt a day, and apparently gave greater consideration to the desires of the food industry than to the health of the nation, and I wonder how many deaths and how much terrible suffering he was, therefore, personally responsible for? And I wonder why his successors in the post were so tardy in taking effective steps to give warnings about salt consumption? - Political considerations? - What though, could be more important in this matter than the health of the members of public - the electorate - the tax-payers, in fact?

I consider the failure until recent times to put pressure on food manufacturers and caterers to reduce the sodium content of foods and meals to be a dereliction of duty of successive political administrations and health departments. - I remember buying McCance and Widdowson's 'Composition of Foods' in the late '90s, at considerable cost, in order to discover how much sodium there was in food. There was no way consumers could get this information from the pack. - The people of this country have been very ill-served in this matter.

See my webpage about the Politics of Salt for fuller coverage of the issue.

And it is more than time for Professor MacGregor to tell the truth about salt sensitivity, especially that caused by the reckless over-prescribing of pharmaceutical drugs that cause weakened blood vessels, massive fluid retention and consequent morbid obesity. - I wrote to him about this OVER TEN YEARS AGO and yet he is still not telling the truth about obesity and the salt connection.

Statins are being touted again. They certainly manage to get a lot of publicity. - But reducing salt intake is safer and is likely to do you more good

They're banging the drum again for statins. - They seem very popular drugs with researchers. They're not so popular with the people who take them.

You can read in the Telegraph that the latest research is again calling for wider prescribing of these drugs and claiming that, by their cholesterol-lowering effect, this would reduce by a fifth the risk of stroke.

Many people embark on these drugs and give them up because of the multitude of unpleasant side-effects, which include "muscle aches, fatigue, liver problems, sleep disturbance, headaches, sexual dysfunction, amnesia and in rare cases lung disease," according to the Telegraph article.

I can't say I regard this as a big deal. - Consider this instead, taken from the BBC News website BBC News health item

"Professor Graham MacGregor, of the Action On Salt campaign, says recent studies have confirmed that cutting salt intake will cause an immediate and important fall in blood pressure.

A three gramme reduction in intake has been predicted to reduce strokes in the UK by a quarter and heart attacks by 16%"

So - without taking drugs for the rest of your life, and without putting up with many unpleasant and serious side-effects, and without visits to the doctor and the chemist - you could just reduce your salt intake and have an even greater reduction in your risk of stroke! - It's a no-brainer...(o: - Go on! Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Britain's biggest baker, Warburtons, is selling bread with up to 20 per cent more salt than rivals.

Warburtons bread 'has highest salt content'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract 1

"An investigation revealed that some loaves made by Warburtons, – the UK's biggest food brand after Coca-Cola – contain half a gram of salt per slice, meaning that a five-year-old child would reach their safe limit from eating three sandwiches.

Salt raises heart pressure which is the biggest cause of heart attacks and strokes. Campaigners say lowering levels would save 16,500 lives a year – a third of the deaths from smoking. A further 16,500 people would be prevented from having debilitating non-fatal heart attacks and strokes, according to the pressure group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash)."

Extract 2

"Overall, Warburtons had an average of 1.08g salt, 5 per cent more than Kingsmill, 12 per cent more than Tesco, and 20 per cent saltier than Sainsbury's, which has been praised for improving cardiovascular health.

Warburtons, a privately-owned brand from Bolton, Lancashire, promotes itself as a wholesome, family-run baker. Warburtons defended its record, saying it had cut salt by "over 30 per cent in recent years" and would hit targets by their deadline in 2010."

I don't think it's completely accurate for Warburton's to say that they have cut salt by "over 30 per cent in recent years" because a few years ago some of the loaves they used to sell were called, if I remember correctly, Healthy White loaves, and they definitely contained a much lower amount of salt than other loaves - about 0.3g sodium (equal to 0.75g salt) per 100g, because they used LoSalt in the making of the bread, rather than ordinary salt. - I was very sorry that they discontinued this loaf, because it was so much less harmful than other shop-bought bread. Most bread at that time contained about 0.5g (or more) sodium per 100g.

Remember, you can make your own bread easily in a breadmaker and then you could keep the salt content down. Bread manufacturers often claim that salt is necessary to the bread-making process. - I find this hard to believe because I don't put any salt at all into the bread I make and the 'process' doesn't seem to be affected...(o: - However, this is purely my own experience; I know nothing at all about salt in bread-making other than my own experience so I may well be wrong about whether salt affects bread-making.

Extract 3

"The campaign group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) urged it to immediately make steeper cuts to improve its customers' health. Three million people eat Warburtons bread every day. "Bread is the major source of salt in the diet," said Cash's chairman, Professor Graham MacGregor, an NHS doctor who treats heart patients at St George's Hospital, south London. "It is vital that bread manufacturers take a really responsible role."

Manufacturers use salt to improve taste and disguise the use of cheap ingredients. 75 per cent of sodium in the diet comes from processed food."

I do wish Professor MacGregor would tell people the most important information about salt, namely that obesity is caused by salt sensitivity/fluid retention/sodium retention and is reduced by eating less salt. It is inconceivable that he does not know it. I wrote him a long letter about obesity and the salt connection years ago. I politely pointed out that there were some serious errors in his book about salt.

The longer he delays telling the truth about obesity, the greater the harm done to millions of people. The risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, while correct to attribute (in part) to salt intake, does not have the impact that telling the truth about obesity would have. Whilever most people, including the Government's Health Ministers, the Department of Health, doctors, dieticians and the Food Standards Agency, continue to promulgate the lie that obesity is caused by eating too many calories and is reduced by eating fewer calories than the body requires, obesity and its attendant illnesses and ill-health will almost certainly continue to increase, because, as we have just read, the food companies are dragging their feet in reducing the amount of salt they ladle into their harmful products without a lot of censure from their customers, who are being misinformed by the medical profession and Government agencies and the dieting industry.

They all need to confess that they have been misleading the public. - The misinformation is causing terrible, needless suffering, because dieting/calorie restriction leads to inadequate nutrition/malnutrition and so increases the harm done by the salt sensitivity and does not reduce obesity at all. And of course they need to tell the public about the huge rôle prescription drugs play in making people sensitive to salt.

(Addendum: according to my hitcounter, it looks as though someone from Rank Hovis has been reading this blog entry today, October 31st. - Let's hope it will do some good!)

See Extract 4:

"In general, branded breads had more salt than those made by supermarkets. Hovis' white granary bread had 1.4g of salt per 100g – the highest in the survey.")

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

vulnerable groups

See amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Even supermarket staples can contain terrifying levels of harmful additives, endangering the health of our nation's children

I've only come across this article today, so apologies that it was published back in January this year.

A killer on the shelves: the shocking truth about children's food
Article in the Independent

Extracts:

1) Baked beans and beef-burgers; sausages and cereals; pizzas and pita breads are among the most innocuous sounding items we might throw into a supermarket trolley: lunchbox staples and dinner-time essentials that many parents rely upon to keep their offspring happy and their wallets not entirely depleted.

But these foods have a hidden catch, an ingredient whose danger – despite being well-documented by health experts – is still not recognised by the average consumer. Although small amounts of this mineral are essential to life, we take so much that it has become an insidious killer, responsible for more deaths than wars, traffic accidents or illegal drugs. And yet it is kept in kitchens across the country – next to the pepper.

Salt, the secret killer of processed food, is everywhere. We eat two-thirds more of it than we should. Every time we tuck into a sandwich, or a packet of crisps – sometimes even cheese – there is a good chance we are raising our blood pressure.

2) With encouragement from the FSA, manufacturers have been reducing the amount of salt in food for the past 10 years. [I find that a questionable statement. - The FSA was not even in existence 10 years ago. It did not get started till 2000. And its salt advice, to the best of my recollection and knowledge did not start till 2003.]

3) Professor Graham MacGregor, Cash's chairman and professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital in London, urged manufacturers to step up their efforts to take salt out of food. "Anything that lowers blood pressure in childhood is likely to translate into lower levels of blood pressure in adult life, with reduced risk of developing heart disease and stroke," he said.

"And it's not just heart attacks and strokes that are caused by a high-salt diet. Too much salt is also linked with stomach cancer and osteoporosis and can aggravate the symptoms of asthma.

"If they really cannot reduce the salt content in food eaten by children to reasonable levels, perhaps they should consider ceasing production." [My emphasis.]

4) The British food and drink industry is keen to show that it is acting responsibly. An analysis of 100,000 products for the Food and Drink Federation by market research firm TNS Worldpanel showed that, in the past 12 months, 2,000 tons of salt had been removed from crisps, breakfast cereals, bread, home cooking products, and canned goods. Peter East, a director of TNS Worldpanel, said the average consumer purchased 0.3 per cent less salt in 2007.

That's a laugh! - "Peter East, a director of TNS Worldpanel, said the average consumer purchased 0.3 per cent less salt in 2007." - 0.3% less! - A few grains! - Good grief! Is he joking?

High salt intake in childhood causes child obesity. - It's disgraceful that this hugely important fact is not published by the obesity 'experts' and the experts on high blood pressure.

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

Well tonight I watched the Channel 4 Dispatches programme about shop-bought sandwiches

And clearly Boots sandwiches are much, much safer than the others - much the lowest salt and much the most accurate, honest labelling of what the sandwich is made of and the nutritional information.

And clearly some sandwiches are quite likely to give you food poisoning! - See the following link:

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/dispatches/sandwiches+unwrapped/2356872

The programme was very well presented by Channel 4 News presenter Alex Thomson, but was badly let down by some of the 'experts' who featured in it. - Professor Tom Saunders perpetuated the canard that calories and fat and sugar are the causes of obesity. - No, they're not, Tom! - I am constantly amazed at how this guy fails to grasp the truth about obesity. Salt sensitivity and the fluid retention, etc that accompanies it are what mainly cause obesity. (People who are not sensitive to salt do not become obese, even if they overeat and take little exercise.)

And although we were correctly informed that salt intake contributes to stroke, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, Professor Graham MacGregor failed yet again to tell the millions watching the programme about obesity and the salt connection, and about how salt sensitivity comes about...)o: - He should have been telling - and indeed stressing - that salt reduction is the safe, effective, healthy way to lose weight.

And none of the experts mentioned the connection between high cholesterol and salt sensitivity - that reducing salt intake rapidly reduces high cholesterol levels.

Well I hope that if you watched the programme it put you off buying sandwiches from a shop, unless that shop is Boots. But as the presenter said at the end, it's best to make your own sandwiches...(o:

If you are overweight/obese and want to lose weight, you can do it easily and safely. - Read these pages to see how:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

See also FAT RETENTION

Jamie Oliver is being criticised over the level of salt in his tomato sauce.

Jamie Oliver's Pasta Sauce is too salty
Article in the Guardian

The Guardian reports that, "Graham MacGregor, professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital in south London, said he was shocked by the figures. MacGregor, who chairs Consensus Action on Salt and Health, said Oliver's tomato, olive and garlic sauce contained 20% more salt than Atlantic seawater."

I'm disappointed that Jamie has not ensured that the sauces with his name on are not lower in salt than other sauces. - I've just been looking on the internet and found a very low salt tomato sauce on this webpage: http://www.westcountryspice.com/products.htm

Here is why you need to protect your child from salt and salty food:
Children and Obesity

Salt levels listed in the Guardian article:

"Jamie Oliver's pasta sauce 3g/100g

Kelloggs cornflakes 1.75g/100g

Sharwood's Tikka Masala Cooking Sauce 1.65g/100g

Heinz baked beans 1.3g/100g

Hovis Farmhouse white loaf 1.25g/100g

Goodfella's Cheesy Pizza 1.1g/100g

Bernard Matthews Turkey Twizzler 0.925g/100g (new recipe) or 1.24g/100g (old recipe)

McDonald's Big Mac 0.9g/100g

Covent Garden Food Co. plum tomato and marscapone soup 0.4g/100g"

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Child health fears over high salt levels in sweet foods

Child health fears over high salt levels in sweet foods

Extract from the Guardian:

"Many sweet foods popular with children contain potentially dangerous levels of salt which are putting their health at risk, a campaign group warns today.

Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) said new research had found salt in desserts, sweet drinks and snacks of which parents were likely to be unaware.

Cash is calling on parents to check labels carefully and stop buying very salty foods for their children. The charity also urges manufacturers to lower the amount of salt they put into children's foods and to provide clear salt labelling to help parents make informed choices.

Eating too much salt is linked with high blood pressure, which increases the risk of strokes and heart disease.

Cash's research into food products on sale this month found that an Asda rolypoly fresh 114g pudding had 1.1g of salt - 55% of the recommended daily maximum for under-threes and 36% for four- to six-year-olds. A Heinz tinned treacle sponge pudding had 0.8g of salt per quarter of a tin - 40% of the average daily maximum for a child aged one to three and 27% for a child aged four to six.

Professor Graham MacGregor, Cash's chairman, said research showed children with high-salt diets had higher blood pressure, which was putting their health at risk in the longer term. "We want to see all manufacturers doing everything they can to reduce the salt they put in children's food," he said. "If they really cannot reduce the salt content in food eaten by children to reasonable levels perhaps they should consider ceasing production?""

It is high time manufacturers stopped ladling salt into food. And it's high time Professor MacGregor informed the public that obesity is caused by sodium retention and water retention and that obesity is most safely and speedily reduced by cutting down on salt intake.

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

BEWARE OF EXTREMELY HIGH SALT CONTENT IN MEALS AT PIZZA HUT, KFC, McDONALD'S AND BURGER KING. - CHILDREN ARE ESPECIALLY AT RISK.

Fast food 'almost as salty as the sea' - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Family meals at fast food outlets contain more than twice the recommended daily amount of salt, a new study claims.

Health campaigners say the "big four" restaurants - Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonald's and Burger King - are behaving irresponsibly by making some meals almost as salty as sea water.

A report by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) named Pizza Hut as the worst offender, with an average family meal containing more than twice the maximum level of salt for adults, and almost four times the limit for a six-year-old child.

Prof Graham MacGregor, the chairman of Cash and the director of St George's Hospital Medical School blood pressure department, accused the fast food chains of using excessive salt so children become hooked on them and help drive up profits.

"Salt is very addictive," he said. "You see this in children when you give them good, home-cooked food without much salt, they think it does not taste right."

"Cash is calling for firms to slash salt levels in their products and to display traffic light symbols on all products so customers can see at a glance how much their food contains."

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Beware the salty salad! (McDonald's)

McDonald's salads 'are saltier than a Big Mac' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Some McDonald's salads contain nearly a third more salt than a Big Mac burger and fries, new research shows.

A survey of 156 ready-made salads and pasta bowls from coffee shops and fast-food restaurants found that while the overall average of salt levels was healthy - 1.4g - nearly a fifth (19 per cent) had more than the 2g recommended for a meal.

The saltiest salad in the survey by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) - the Thai noodle bowl from EAT - had 4.4g of salt per portion, nearly three quarters of the total recommended daily salt intake of 6g.

Cash said some salads should carry health warnings rather than manufacturers marketing them as healthy meals.

The research found the McDonald's crispy chicken Caesar and grilled chicken Caesar contained 3.5g and 3.3g of salt per portion respectively - more than the supposedly less healthy Big Mac and small fries, which contains 2.5g of salt.

Graham McGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and chairman of Cash, said cutting salt intakes would save thousands of lives.

He added: "Many people think of a salad as a healthy lunch. And in many cases this is true and we would encourage people to look out for low salt, low fat salads as a good lunchtime option."

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Warning that shop-bought sandwiches are high in salt.

Sandwich seven times saltier than crisps - Telegraph

Well it's been in 'all' the newspapers today and on Radio 4 and Radio 5 and on various TV newscasts. - You've got to hand it to CASH - Consensus Action on Salt and Health - they are good at drumming up publicity when they want it... - If only they would tell the full truth about salt and health, instead of the very restricted version they choose to put across. - I'll pick this up following this extract from the article:

"Pre-packed sandwiches can contain as much salt as several bags of crisps, according to research into Britain’s favourite lunchtime food.

A survey of 140 ready-made sandwiches found that some had more than half the recommended daily allowance of salt.

A total of 40 per cent of sandwiches tested by the health lobby group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) had 2g or more of salt, or a third of an adult’s recommended daily allowance.

The saltiest sandwich in the survey was Asda’s Extra Special Yorkshire Ham and Hawkes Wensleydale, which was found to contain 4g, or 65 per cent of the recommended daily salt intake.

Pret a Manger’s All Day Breakfast, with 3.54g, was next on the list followed by Tesco’s Finest All Day Breakfast, Morrisons’ Chicken and Bacon, Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Brunch and Waitrose’s Sausage, Egg and Bacon, all with 3.5g of salt.

Cash, which carried out the survey for the BBC, noted that a standard bag of Walkers Ready Salted Crisps contains 0.5g of salt, so the saltiest sandwiches contain the equivalent of seven bags of crisps.

The sandwiches with the least salt were Co-op’s Healthy Living Tuna and Cucumber and Tesco’s Healthy Living Chicken Salad."

Although it is good that CASH draws attention - both the consumers' attention and the retailers' attention - to these high salt/sodium levels, and although Prof MacGregor of CASH always correctly gives the information that lowering salt intake reduces risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, he does not give the most important information of all - that fluid retention is the cause of salt sensitivity, which in turn is the cause of weight gain/obesity and that lowering salt intake is the best and safest way to lose weight.

What a pity CASH's Professor MacGregor does not give the vital message that reducing the amount of salt eaten by obese/overweight people would be the safest, swiftest and most reliable way to reduce their excess weight! - What a pity he does not mention that high salt intake is the chief cause of child obesity! - What a terrible pity he does not mention that steroid victims - made morbidly obese because of taking certain prescribed steroids or HRT or tricyclic antidepressants or certain other drugs - need to reduce their salt/sodium intake to as low as they possibly can - permanently - in order to lose some of the vast volume of excess fluid they are carrying! - And what a pity he does not warn them that reducing calories is completely inappropriate and ineffective as a means of steroid victims losing weight and that eating less food will exacerbate their health problems, rather than helping them!

What a pity he does not press the food companies to produce some lines of foods specially for steroid victims and other obese victims of negligently prescribed/monitored drugs and people morbidly obese from other causes! - These would be foods containing NO ADDED SODIUM AT ALL. - And for everyone who thinks it's easy to avoid salt by cooking from fresh, I agree. - But it isn't easy cooking from fresh when you are morbidly obese and exhausted at having to carry gallons of excess fluid round with you all the time. - Nothing much is easy for morbidly obese people actually...)o:

And what a pity he doesn't seek to get it across to doctors that when they give their patients prescriptions for these potentially dangerous drugs they should give them a serious warning that eating salt while taking the drugs is likely to result in their becoming salt-sensitive and obese and likely to develop diabetes and dementia and a host of other degenerative diseases!

And what a pity he doesn't press for on-pack labelling of all these drugs to warn people not to eat salt or food containing salt while on the medication!

Lose weight! by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

and see http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/vulnerable_groups.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Remember: 'slimming' is harmful and unnecessary; all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - because their high potassium content helps to remove sodium from the body.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...(o:

Huge weight gains reported by patients on prescription drugs

So! - Researchers are beginning to catch up with what I have been explaining for years!


Huge weight gains reported by patients on prescription drugs - Independent on Sunday

I have been writing and talking to medics, scientists, journalists, broadcasters, MPs, etc etc for many years about this. I wrote at great length and with great effort to Professor Graham MacGregor, of St George's Hospital, London, described in his book about Salt, Diet and Health as 'an international authority on high blood pressure and actively involved in research on salt and high blood pressure', in 1999, having tried in vain to speak to him about it when I travelled to St George's in the hope of seeing him. He failed to act on the information I had sent him.

I shall write further about the newspaper report and about the failure of any of the many important and influential people whom I have contacted over these many years to do a damned thing about the needless destruction of people's lives and health by the reckless prescribing of ill-informed and negligent doctors. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html
groups vulnerable to salt
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/lose_weight.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Consensus Action on Salt and Health calls for boycott on salty foods. - Still no warning or vital salt info/publicity targeted at steroid/HRT victims!

Watchdog calls for boycott on salty foods

Extract:

"Some of Tesco's and Sainsbury's own brands are among 10 products identified by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash), a health pressure group which claims they have almost as much salt as sea water.

Quaker Salt and Vinegar Snack-a-Jacks and Peperami sticks have well over that amount, it claims.

Cash says there is no justification for so much salt in the products and lists 10 alternatives with a fraction of the amount. It hopes its campaign will persuade more manufacturers to reduce salt in their products.

Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Cash, said it was important to reduce the amount of salt added to foods in order to cut the number of people dying from strokes and heart attacks caused by high blood pressure.

Around 80 per cent of the 200,000 tons of salt consumed every year is taken in through processed food and children are particularly vulnerable."

What a pity Professor MacGregor does not give the vital message that reducing the amount of salt eaten by obese/overweight people would be the safest, swiftest and most reliable way to reduce their excess weight! - What a pity he does not mention that high salt intake is the chief cause of child obesity! - What a terrible pity he does not mention that steroid victims, made morbidly obese because of taking certain prescribed steroids or HRT, need to reduce their salt/sodium intake to as low as they possibly can - permanently - in order to lose some of the vast volume excess fluid they are carrying! - And what a pity he does not warn them that reducing calories is completely inappropriate and ineffective as a means of steroid victims losing weight and that eating less food will exacerbate their health problems, rather than helping them!

What a pity he does not press the food companies to produce some lines of foods specially for steroid victims and other obese victims of negligently prescribed/monitored drugs and people morbidly obese from other causes! - These would be foods containing NO ADDED SODIUM AT ALL. - And for everyone who thinks it's easy to avoid salt by cooking from fresh, I agree. - But it isn't easy cooking from fresh when you are morbidly obese and exhausted at having to carry gallons of excess fluid round with you all the time. - Nothing much is easy for morbidly obese people actually...)o:

And what a pity he doesn't seek to get it across to doctors that when they give their patients prescriptions for these potentially dangerous drugs they should give them a serious warning that eating salt while taking the drugs is likely to result in their becoming salt-sensitive and obese!

And what a pity he doesn't press for on-pack labelling of these drugs to warn people not to eat salt or food containing salt while on the medication!

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Remember: 'slimming' is harmful and unnecessary; all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - because their high potassium content helps to remove sodium from the body.