The many health benefits of avoiding salt and salty food

The many health benefits of avoiding salt and salty food include lowering high blood pressure, lowering your risk of heart disease, heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, most cancers and dementia. It helps with asthma and other breathing problems, inadequate sleep, tiredness, depression, chronic pain, osteoporosis, varicose veins, arthritis, red face, failing memory, inability to concentrate - and so many more! - And that's apart from the benefit I usually write about, namely losing excess weight.

The thing is, pretty well every overweight or obese person loses weight very quickly when they seriously cut down on salt and salty food, and I did believe that it was every one of them. - But last night I heard from a guy in America who was very grateful to me for the advice on my website and blogs and has cut down on salt as a result of taking that advice. - I can't properly remember how long since he started avoiding salt, but I think it's something like a couple of weeks. He says he feels much more mentally alert and is feeling soooooo much better - just like I say will happen - but he hasn't lost any weight yet. So it seems that it's not correct that all overweight people lose weight rapidly, though I assure you that of the people who contact me about cutting down on salt, most of them are eager to tell me straight away that they are losing weight so easily and so fast, as well as all the other benefits, and the compliments they are receiving because they are looking so much better and their work performance has improved so much. Anyway, maybe with some people they get the other benefits first, and the weight loss takes more time.

If you are feeling better because of cutting down on salt but you are not yet losing weight, maybe you have a problem with sugar and other carbs. Not living in America I've not encountered the phenomenon of most food there containing not just salt, but loads of HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and other alien pretend-food, manufactured in laboratories and factories, loads of genetically modified crops/products, loads of hormone-contaminated and pesticide-contaminated frankenfood. Maybe all that 'food' that is so unsuitable for our species that lived for about 2.4 million years on plain, natural animal meat and its fat, plus some plants, and water (not coke! - and not diet coke!) does even more harm to Americans' body chemistry than the UK processed food does to us in the UK. Watch The Bitter Truth when you have 90 minutes to spare. And of course, Americans take even more pharmaceutical drugs than people in the UK, and these drugs do very, very great harm to your body's chemistry and physiology. See Amitriptyline and other drugs. See Prescribed Steroids, HRT and other drugs.

So as well as avoiding added salt/sodium, try low carb, high fat to help you with losing excess weight. - But make sure the fats you eat are good fats - fat from the meat of pastured animals, not from animals that have been fed on grain and hormones and pesticides and anti-biotics. Make sure the butter you eat is made from the milk of pastured cows. Don't ever eat margarine, or low-fat perversions of food. Don't eat oils like corn-oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, 'vegetable oil', etc. You want food that is as natural and unprocessed as possible: so cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil is good. - And don't diet or eat 'diet-foods' or 'slimming foods'. Just eat good, natural, nutritious food. - You will feel sooo much better!

Be amazed at how quickly your health improves when you stop eating salt and salty food

You really will be astonished at how quickly your health improves when you stop eating salt and salty food. - Within just a few days you will feel better, have more energy and be more mentally alert. If you are obese or overweight you will have lost some of that excess weight without dieting or counting calories. If you have high blood pressure it will be lower. If you worry about your high cholesterol that also will be lower. And you may well be having people comment on how well you are looking...
See Lose weight by eating less salt! and Sodium in Foods.

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food. I just lost it steadily during that time, without gaining weight at all except when I bought and ate a ready-made sandwich while I was out one day and that week gained a pound. (Bread is very fattening for overweight people because it contains a lot of added salt.)

If you are overweight/fat/obese, you too could lose weight easily and safely by eating less salt and salty food. There is no need to go hungry or to count calories and definitely no need to damage your health by taking weight loss drugs or appetite suppressants. Just eat less salt and salty food. - You will feel so much better!

Study finds clear association between obesity and vitamin D deficiency

Clear association between obesity and vitamin D deficiency
A study conducted at Uppsala University has demonstrated that obese people often suffer from serious vitamin D deficiency and poor calcium metabolism. The findings have been published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. According to the researchers, the problem is underappreciated by the health care establishment. "... the researchers hold it to be probable that obesity causes the vitamin deficiency and not vice versa."
Read article at physorg.com

Beware of highly salted curries.

High salt intake is implicated in most degenerative diseases and avoidable disabilities, and if you are overweight/obese and/or have high blood pressure or heart disease, then it is particularly important for your health to eat less salt.

This BBC News article reports on the latest research from CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health) into the salt levels in commercially produced curries. CASH found that the salt levels tend to be very high indeed, exceptions being the Co-operative's Healthy Living Rogan Josh and Weightwatcher's Korma, which had just 0.5g per portion.

Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Children and Obesity

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

If you are buying shoes/slippers/sandals for an obese or overweight person, here are some suggestions.

If you are buying shoes/slippers/sandals as/for an obese or very overweight person, then as well as getting a large enough size in length and width, I suggest that you try to get them deeper as well, with plenty of room for the toes. People who are overweight usually have swollen feet - often painfully swollen - and if the footwear is not sufficiently roomy then the pain will be made worse. Similarly with socks - extra roomy is best. And also, with socks, they are more comfortable if they are seamless and if they have a soft top which does not restrict the circulation. Other considerations are whether the footwear is too heavy and tiring to wear, and whether soft insoles would make walking easier.

How to lose weight.

John Humphrys on Radio 4's Today programme has made his prejudices about obese people clear this morning

John Humphrys was interviewing someone this morning about the inconsistency of access to weight loss surgery provided by the NHS. Both interviewer and interviewee seemed to be confident that obesity is caused, or mainly caused, by eating too much and taking insufficient exercise. Humphrys even aired the idea that it should be thought of as a moral or ethical problem. But these two men are so wrong in their ill-informed opinions. (As to whether people should be offered weight loss surgery, with all the risks and pain that major surgery entails, my personal view is that this surgery should be avoided, unless at the same time the correct information is given about the paramount importance of avoiding salt and salty food.)

Salt sensitivity/fluid retention (which often leads to calcium deficiency and fat retention) is the problem, not gluttony or laziness.

Obesity is the main underlying cause of most chronic illness and a lot of frailty. It is therefore increasingly desirable to reduce the incidence and severity of obesity because this would reduce chronic illness, frailty and human suffering to a small fraction of what it is now. But this CANNOT be achieved by continuing to give the wrong information about the causes of obesity and about how best to reduce obesity.

The continuing increase in the incidence and severity of obesity is NOT caused by eating too many calories/too much fat and/or taking too little exercise. – No matter how many doctors and other ‘experts’ claim that it is, and that it can be reduced by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise, they are wrong and it is still NOT true. – The hypothesis has never been put to the test scientifically and there is certainly not a shred of valid evidence to back it up.

There is, however, a wealth of evidence to show that it is NOT true. – Millions upon millions of innocent overweight people have tried over decades to reduce their excess weight by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise. – Overwhelmingly they fail to lose weight this way. – They get tired; they feel cold and ill and hungry. – But they do not lose weight (or if they do it is only temporary). – The ‘experts’ then tell them that they have done it wrong; they haven’t tried hard enough or long enough; they are lying; they are mistaken, etc. – The ‘experts’ cannot get their heads around the fact that it is THEY who are wrong; THEY who are lying; THEY who are mistaken…

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. – It is as simple, and as profoundly complex, as that.

Now – what really causes the fluid retention/salt sensitivity/obesity? – Here are the main causes:

1. Prescription drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline.

Amitriptyline is also known as Elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl, and is present in some combination drugs, e.g. Limbitrol is a drug which combines amitriptyline and chlordiazepoxide.

Weight gain is also widely reported by people taking Lexapro, Prozac, Fontex, Celexa and Paxil. These are not tricyclic antidepressants; they are SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). As with the tricyclic antidepressants, the weight gain is because of sodium retention and fluid/water retention, and can be avoided/reduced by avoiding eating salt and salty food.

2. Other prescription drugs such as steroids including prednisolone (also sold as Pediapred®), prednisone (also sold as Deltasone®, Meticorten, Orasone and SK-Prednisone), cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, betamethasone, beclomethasone, fludrocortisone, triamsinolone, desonide, fluprednidene, clobetasone, alclomethasone, momethasone, desoxymethasone, fluosinonide, budesonide, fluosinolone, triamcinolone (trade names Kenalog, Aristocort, Nasacort, Tri-Nasal, Triderm, Azmacort, Trilone, Volon A, Tristoject, Fougera, Tricortone, Triesence) and other corticosteroids, Advair – a combination drug that contains Fluticasone, a corticosteroid, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen – like some birth control medication (contraceptives) – some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing’s Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients’ progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily and swiftly be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication that I have not mentioned on this page, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain. Doctors seldom, if ever, warn about the drugs that cause salt sensitivity and the need very strictly to avoid salt and salty food while on the drugs, and many do not observe the drug protocols and very few properly monitor the patient’s progress on the drugs. Obviously if doctors did do all these things, there would be no steroid victims, no patients with drug-induced obesity, etc. whereas there are many millions of them worldwide, victims of medical negligence and ignorance.

3. If, as a baby or small child, you ate salt and salty food, you were highly likely to have developed sensitivity to salt and you therefore became fat or overweight.

4. Pregnancy can cause fluid retention/salt sensitivity because of hormonal changes during pregnancy. It is important to avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy.

These are the main causes of obesity. Dieting/calorie counting makes obesity worse and should be avoided.

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, 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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

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

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

Professor Steve Jones fails to realise that fluid retention/salt sensitivity is the main cause of obesity.

See Professor Jones' article in the Telegraph, in which he blames his 4 pound weight gain over the festive season on "gluttony and sloth", thereby by implication attributing gluttony and sloth to all who are fat/overweight/obese. Being a geneticist he brings genetics into his essay, and being a man of his time, conditioned by the calories message that has mislead most people for many decades now, he fails to consider the rôles played by higher salt intake engineered by a 'purely' profit-driven food industry and the even more sinister rôle played by the pharmaceutical industry, far too many of which's drugs directly cause sodium retention/water retention/obesity/morbid obesity and a host of co-morbidities including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, dementia, 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! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Sodium in foods

Children and Obesity

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

Salt can make you hungry and tired, as well as thirsty.

When overweight/obese people cut down on salt they lose weight, because for them, cutting down on salt reduces their thirst and excess fluid retention. Then, having less weight to carry round obviously means they become less tired. And in addition, because of having less weight to carry around, they need less food to provide them with the energy/calories to carry their lighter body around, so they feel less hungry.

There is no need to diet to lose weight! - Dieting makes you more tired, cold and hungry. It is not necessary, it does not make you less obese, and it is usually harmful.

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 damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - 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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

Australians pay heavily for heavy public servants to lose weight

Article in the Telegraph

It seems that while we in the UK have been paying for our MPs to live lives of luxury and excess, Australian taxpayers have been shelling out for overweight government staff to take part in very expensive Weight Watchers 'slimming' courses. - What a waste! - They'll not even lose weight!

Australians in general, and not just public servants, are getting heavier/more obese.

All that any overweight person needs to do to lose a lot of excess weight is to give up dieting and concentrate on reducing the fluid retention that is the cause of overweight/obesity. This entails cutting down on salt/sodium and eating plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables.

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

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

Women who choose fertility treatment after one year of trying for a baby naturally may do more harm than good, a leading fertility expert has warned.

Fertility expert warns 'don't rush into treatment'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Many young women would be better off improving fertility through simpler means such as cutting stress levels and losing weight, according to Dr Geeta Nargund.

Research shows those who opt for IVF after 12 months are only slightly more likely to conceive than those who let nature take its course. They are also more likely to have twins or triplets, raising the overall health risk.

Dr Nargund, head of reproductive medicine at St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London, told the Daily Mail: "We must offer lifestyle advice, early tests and simple approaches to promote natural conception. If a woman is younger and has no serious medical causes of infertility, she should consider improving her fertility naturally.

"IVF is safe but what we are saying is you don't want unnecessary medical treatment far too early.""

Overweight/obese women can improve their fertility by cutting down on salt and salty food - because this reduces the fluid retention which is the cause of excess weight.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, 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! - You will feel so much better!

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

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free. I am not a doctor or a dietician or a nutritionist. My website does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

New cases of diabetes have risen by 74 % in just six years, increasing at a faster pace than in America as obesity takes its toll, researchers warn.

New cases of diabetes up by three quarters as obesity rises, researchers find
article in the telegraph

Extract:

"In the ten years up until 2005, 42,642 people were diagnosed with either Type 1 diabetes which affects younger people who are a healthy weight, or Type 2 diabetes which normally develops later due to being overweight or obese.

While new cases of Type 1 diabetes have remained constant there has been a 69 per cent increase in Type 2, the researchers from the Spanish Centre for Pharmoepidemiological Research (CIEFE), in Madrid, Spain found.

In 1996, 38 per cent of people newly diagnosed with Type 2 disease were overweight and 46 per cent were obese but in 2005, 32 per cent of people newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes were overweight and 56 per cent were obese, respectively.

The researchers writing online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health said the pace of the rise in diabetes cases has quickened in recent years increasing by 74 per cent between 1997 and 2003 alone.

Lead author Ms Elvira Massó González, said: "Our results suggest that, although the incidence of diabetes remains lower in the UK than in the USA or Canada, it appears to be increasing at a faster pace.""

Obesity will continue inexorably to increase unless and until people are told the truth, namely that it is a problem of fluid retention, not a problem of overeating, and that it can be reduced easily on an individual basis by giving up dieting and instead concentrating on avoiding salt and salty food. - It is vital for the general public however, as opposed to the individual patient, that doctors' monumentally high prescribing of drugs be curbed by law, in order to prevent the nation's health from going to Hell in an accelerating handcart!

I can't find an email address for Sir Michael Marmot, but if you are easily able to contact him, do, please, direct him to my website.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, 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! - You will feel so much better!

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

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free. I am not a doctor or a dietician or a nutritionist. My website does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

The Telegraph reports that being overweight is a curse not just on a woman's health, but on her entire life, a new study has found.

Obesity is a curse for women
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Researchers have discovered that overweight women are more likely to lose their jobs, be a victim of crime and have money troubles. They are are more likely to be criminals themselves.

To make matters worse, because of these stressful life events, they are driven to comfort-eating which only perpetuates the problem, increasing the probability that they will be unluckier still."

The first paragraph of the extract I have chosen is doubtless correct. These findings are measurable and are capable of being checked to see if they can be replicated. - The second paragraph is assumption (false), based not on evidence, but on learned prejudice. - The fatter/more obese people are, obviously the more food/calories they need in order to service their heavier bodies - to move their heavier bodies around and to keep their bodies warm. - If the fat people do indeed eat the greater amount of food/calories they need why should it be called 'comfort-eating' or any other derogatory term?

And here's a fact - not an assumption for the misguided, condescending 'experts' that bring out these flawed 'studies' to ponder - when fat people disobey the dictates of their bodies' needs and stay hungry by forcing themselves to take the sort of advice these 'experts' give, i.e. to eat less food/fewer calories in order to lose excess weight, they do not lose excess weight: they gain weight.

This is because eating insufficient food for your body's requirements weakens the blood vessel walls (as well as weakening every other system and every organ in the body), thus bringing about swollen, overstretched veins containing more fluid, and it is fluid retention that is the cause of obesity/excess weight. Whilever women and men continue to be constantly misinformed by the foolish, unscientific 'experts', obesity will continue to increase both in incidence and in severity.

To lose excess weight it is necessary to eat less salt and salty food because this will reduce the body's fluid retention. This is the safe, sure, healthy way to lose weight and it works like magic.

DON'T DIET! - Dieting is unnecessary, harmful and IT DOES NOT WORK!

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, 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!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

If you're obese or overweight, Salt is the killer on your plate! Margaret Wilde © 2008

If you're obese or overweight,
SALT is the poison on your plate!

Margaret Wilde © 2008

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, 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!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Did you see last night on Channel 4 that tiny, tiny baby kangaroo/joey emerge from its mother and make its difficult way to the teat in her pouch?

Extraordinary Animals in the Womb

As I write, there are 30 days in which you can catch up with viewing it here - http://www.channel4.com/video/brandless-catchup.jsp?vodBrand=extraordinary-animals-in-the-womb

More details of the programme are here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/15/nosplit/bvtvanimalwomb15.xml and here:

http://forums.digiguide.com/topic.asp?id=27454&subject=Extraordinary+Animals+in+The+Womb+showing+on+Channel+4

and on many other webpages.

Extract:

""In Extraordinary Animals in the Womb, the embryonic journeys of four very remarkable animals are brought to life as they develop from conception to birth. The shark, whose cannibalistic embryos will eat their own siblings to survive; the emperor penguin, whose egg-bound chicks must battle the coldest weather on the planet; the kangaroo, whose underdeveloped foetus will undergo an exceptionally premature birth; and the parasitic wasp - whose larvae must hijack and exploit the body of another creature.

Filming across three continents, and making use of the latest HD camera technology, the Animals in the Womb team swam with pregnant sharks and witnessed up close the torment of parasitised caterpillars. Groundbreaking photography takes us inside the pouch of a kangaroo, and remarkable scans and special effects reveal 14 half-metre young inside the womb of a wild shark."

The miniscule joey interested me the most - blind, so tiny, so red, so delicate, so vulnerable and dependent. - You may wonder why it is red. - This is because its skin is extremely thin and what you are really seeing is its blood vessels through the transparent window of the ultra-thin skin. - It so obviously needs a safe place in which to feed and grow (the mother's pouch with the teat) till its skin, etc are strong enough to be exposed to the 'outside' world and its hazards and stresses.

There are some similarities, you may be surprised to learn, between the joey and a morbidly obese steroid victim! - The fatter anyone becomes, the thinner their skin becomes and so the closer to the surface are the blood vessels and so the redder their skin appears - red face, red hands, red arms, red-skinned legs, red or purple feet, etc - swollen with distended veins, swollen with pain, vulnerable to knocks, harmed by pressure, easily bruised and further damaged...

But unlike the joey, obese people have no chance of building up the strength and thickness/firmness of their skin: - once depleted, the skin's thickness cannot return. - These problems are worsened by dieting. - Dieting, by which I mean eating less food/fewer calories than the body requires in the mistaken belief that this will reduce obesity, is EXTREMELY HARMFUL. - The skin gets very much thinner very much faster, and the blood vessel walls get very much thinner very much faster too. - This obviously causes the blood vessel walls to be overstretched and stressed and much weaker, which results in them becoming distended (fluid retention) with extra fluid, so causing WEIGHT GAIN, NOT WEIGHT LOSS.

To reduce excess weight you need to reduce the fluid retention that has caused the weight gain. - So you need to avoid dieting/'slimming' and instead concentrate on avoiding salt and salty food, because that extra fluid in the veins is extra sodium and water, and to lose some of it you need to reduce your sodium intake.

When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels and elsewhere). This condition is also known as sodium retention, water retention, fluid retention, salt sensitivity or oedema. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, 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!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Children exposed to pesticide in womb twice as likely to be overweight, refuting idea of sole personal responsibility. (Geoffrey Lean, IoS)

Pollution can make you fat, study claims
Report by Geoffrey Lean in the Independent on Sunday

Extracts:

"Pollution can make children fat, startling new research shows. A groundbreaking Spanish study indicates that exposure to a range of common chemicals before birth sets up a baby to grow up stout, thus helping to drive the worldwide obesity epidemic.

The results of the study, just published – the first to link chemical contamination in the womb with one of the developing world's greatest and fastest-growing health crises – carry huge potential implications for public policy around the globe. They undermine recent strictures from the Conservative leader, David Cameron, that blame solely the obese for their own condition.

A quarter of all British adults and a fifth of children are obese – four times as many as 30 years ago. And so are at least 300 million people worldwide. The main explanation is that they are consuming more calories than they burn. But there is growing evidence that diet and lack of exercise, though critical, cannot alone explain the rapid growth of the epidemic."

"Experiments have shown that many chemicals fed to pregnant animals cause their offspring to grow up obese. These include organotins, long employed in antifouling paints on ships and now widely found in fish; bisphenol A (BPA), used in baby bottles and to line cans of food, among countless other applications; and phthalates, found in cosmetics, shampoos, plastics to wrap food, and in a host of other everyday products.

These pollutants – dubbed "obesogens" as a result of these findings – are so ubiquitous that almost everyone now has them in their bodies. Ninety-five per cent of Americans excrete BPA in their urine; 90 per cent of babies have been found to be exposed to phthalates in the womb; and every umbilical cord analysed in the new Spanish study was found to contain organchlorine pesticides such as HCB."

"Dr Pete Myers, one of the world's leading experts on obesogens, told The Independent on Sunday last night: "This is very important. It is the first good study of the effects on the foetus. Its conclusions are not surprising, given what we know from the animal experiments, but it firmly links such chemicals to the biggest challenge facing public health today.""

I think we can probably trust the actual findings of the study because it is unlikely that it was funded by the pharmaceutical industry. (It is wise never to trust research funded by Big Pharma.) - What we need always to be sceptical about are the conclusions drawn from research, because these conclusions are often based on false premises/assumptions/beliefs/prejudices/self-interest.

There are a number of false assumptions in this report, the main one being contained in this statement: "Everyone agrees that people gain weight by taking in more calories in their food than they burn off through everyday activities and exercise." - The truth is that the calorie explanation of weight gain is untrue. -

OBESITY IS CAUSED BY FLUID RETENTION/SODIUM RETENTION/SALT SENSITIVITY, NOT BY EXCESS CALORIES OR BY INSUFFICIENT EXERCISE. And fluid retention frequently leads to FAT RETENTION.

Fluid retention has a number of contributory causes, to which we should perhaps now add foetal exposure to pollutants. - The good news is that whatever the contributory causes of any individual's obesity, there is a fast, safe, sure way to reduce/prevent it, namely AVOID SALT AND SALTY FOOD AND AVOID PRESCRIPTION DRUGS UNLESS THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY AND TAKE THEM IN THE LOWEST EFFECTIVE DOSE AND FOR THE SHORTEST PERIOD OF TIME NECESSARY.

The main causes of salt sensitivity are

1) prescription drugs, mainly steroids, HRT or other oestrogen-containing drugs such as some contraceptive medications,

anti-psychotics and antidepressants,

but also including many painkillers

2) eating salt and salty food in childhood

3) dieting, i.e. eating insufficient food

4) high levels of oestrogen and eating salty food during pregnancy

5) high levels of oestrogen and other drug residues in our drinking water supply

6) depletion of the body's calcium, magnesium and potassium levels, and vitamin D deficiency

7) eating insufficent fruit and vegetables

The first three are the most important in terms of the numbers of people harmed and the severity of the harm.

Obesity is on the increase mainly because doctors are recklessly prescribing more and more drugs, often in recklessly high doses and constantly give obese people the catastrophically harmful advice to "just eat less and exercise more". - This advice does not reduce obesity; it usually increases obesity because it further weakens the walls of the blood vessels, thus leading to greater fluid retention and malnutrition.

There is further and fuller information on my website. If you need more explanation I can be contacted from 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.)

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, 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!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

See advice for pregnant mothers

More people than ever are seeking help for painful and crippling foot problems as they puts on weight because of misinformation from doctors.

Obesity crisis 'causing painful foot problems'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Doctors warn that more people than ever are seeking help for painful and crippling foot problems as the country puts on weight.

Too much weight on the foot and ankle can cause tendon damage and even lead to bone problems such as osteoarthritis, they warn.

A spokesman for the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists said that anecdotal evidence suggested that there were around twice as many patients with serious foot problems as 10 years ago.

Mike O'Neill, a consultant podiatric surgeon, said: "It is becoming a really serious problem – people who are bigger put more pressure on their ankles, knees and hips as well as feet.

"This can lead to a range of very serious foot problems, not helped by the fact that obese people often struggle to reach their feet and tend to wear shoes with little support, such as low flat slip ons or flip flops.""

It's the fault of the doctors that their patients are putting on weight and getting these painful foot problems. - They keep giving misinformation about the causes of obesity and what to do to reduce it. - Obesity is caused by salt sensitivity leading to fluid retention when salt or salty food is eaten. Obesity is easily and swiftly reduced by avoiding salt and salty food. - It's not calories that need to be reduced; it's salt intake.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, 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!

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods

Associated health conditions

We are told that the average adult has five litres (8.8 pints) of blood. I doubt that is any longer true.

When people become overweight or obese their blood volume increases because of fluid retention. Now that such a high (and rising) proportion of the population is obese, the average person's blood volume must be quite a lot more than 8 pints.

But it would be very difficult to get this checked out because there is some risk of harm from the blood measurement procedure and so health professionals rarely do this measurement.

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.)

A foolish, ill-informed David Cameron has attacked "moral neutrality", saying the obese, the idle and the poor have no one to blame but themselves.

David Cameron launches 'moral neutrality' attack on obese, idle and poor
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"We talk about people being 'at risk of obesity' instead of talking about people who eat too much and take too little exercise."

Absolutely wrong, Mr Cameron! - Where's your evidence? - Any research to support your offensive, false assumption? - Of course not! - You are as ill-informed about obesity as is the prejudiced, ignorant Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of the BMA Council. - See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2007/08/fat-people-are-just-greedy-says-ill.html

Dieting, i.e. eating less food/fewer calories does not reduce obesity, nor does increasing exercise. - This is because obesity is not caused by overeating.

WHEN is the truth going to be told about obesity?

Read my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection

All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. (When doctors prescribe drugs that cause sodium retention and water retention they should warn the patient not to eat salt, or food containing salt, while taking the medication. When they do not give this warning, the inevitable consequence is considerable weight gain.)

Read here about the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt: vulnerable groups

Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.

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.)

When a doctor robs you of your most precious possession - your health - he/she takes from you that which is valueless to others.

When a doctor robs you of your most precious possession - your health - he/she takes from you that which is valueless to others.

When a doctor prescribes for you a drug with grave side-effects that he/she has not bothered to check out and therefore he/she has not given you necessary/vital information and does not bother to monitor you in the way detailed in the protocol associated with the drug I'd consider this medical negligence, wouldn't you? - And even more so if the prescribed dose is a high dose...)o:

If you have been prescribed a drug KNOWN to cause sodium retention and water retention/fluid retention/weight gain and you have become obese as a result, and your doctor did not not warn you that because the drug causes sodium retention you should strenuously avoid salt and salty food while taking the drug, then I consider that you are a victim of medical negligence, especially as the obesity brings many attendant health problems - high blood pressure, high cholesterol, risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, risk of stroke and heart attack and countless other adverse consequences.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

prescribed steroids and HRT

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

See FAT RETENTION