Warning that low-salt diet guidelines could kill

The author of a soon to be released new book on salt, cholesterol and chocolate has slammed today’s Auckland University recommendations to cut salt intake by 30%, warning they could kill New Zealanders.

 

Investigative journalist Ian Wishart, whose previous bestselling health book “Vitamin D” has been endorsed by doctors around the world and translated into other languages, says the latest recommendations to cut salt from the World Health Organisation are the subject of “furious” debate in medical research circles, because they don’t reflect what new clinical studies have discovered about salt.

 

“Study after study is showing that the WHO recommendations are not only not supported by the science…they are actually likely to kill millions of people worldwide if they’re adopted. In randomised controlled trials….the amount of sodium we consume today – around five grams – is not linked to increased heart disease or death(see footnote FN1), but low salt diets below 2.5gm a day actually increase your risk of dying prematurely by 37%(FN2).

 

“A massive study of more than 130,000 people published just weeks ago found people on diets of less than three grams of sodium a day had a much higher risk of fatality than people eating the highest levels of salt. (FN3). There is furious scientific debate saying our public health messages on salt are wrong. If the Government adopts the low salt recommendations made today, more New Zealanders will die than if we left salt intake at current levels.

 

“It’s time for New Zealand’s health bureaucracy to stop adopting ‘Nanny State’ tactics to control public food choices based on bad science.”

 

Ian Wishart’s controversial new book, Show Me The Money Honey: the truth about Big Pharma’s war on salt, chocolate, cholesterol & the natural health products that could save your life

goes on sale at the end of the month.

Show Me The Money, Honey by Ian Wishart – buy one and get another book of your choice half price using HALFPRICE Coupon (plus free Kaloba))

FN1: Am J Hypertens. 2012 Jul;25(7):727-34. doi: 10.1038/ajh.2012.52. Epub 2012 May 25.

Dietary sodium intake and cardiovascular mortality: controversy resolved? Alderman MH, Cohen HW.
FN2: “Sodium intake and mortality in the NHANES II follow-up study”, Cohen et al Am J Med. 2006 Mar;119(3):275.e7-14.

 

FN3: “Associations of urinary sodium excretion with cardiovascular events in individuals with and without hypertension: a pooled analysis of data from four studies”, Mente et al, The Lancet online, 20 May 2016,