Like so many other doctors, I was taught in medical school that salt was a harmful substance. Of course, there was no mention of the difference between refined and unrefined salt. In fact, my professors probably didn’t know the difference.
Specifically, medical schools have been teaching that the use of salt leads to hypertension (high blood pressure). We were also told that if patients have hypertension, they must avoid salt. As I have learned from my own research, much of what I was taught in med school about salt proved to be false.
The assertion that salt leads to hypertension and worsening of cardiovascular disease is another in a long line of falsehoods still promoted by conventional medicine.
How did this myth get started? The initial finding that limiting salt in the diet lowered blood pressure was reported in 1904. Over the next 60 years, various studies found that huge amounts of salt given to animals caused elevated blood pressure.
Keep in mind, however, that in most of these studies the doses of refined salt given to the animals were dramatically higher than the recommended dose. That would be like giving a person at least 500 grams of sodium per day! (The average American gets approximately 3.4 grams of sodium per day.)
Of course in those huge amounts salt intake can have a negative effect. But I don’t see how anyone can extrapolate such results to a normal human diet.
And yet, that is exactly what happened. More and more doctors started sounding the “salt alarm,” claiming that we need to limit our salt intake to combat hypertension.
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