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Originally Posted by xxxmx
i can't not eat it, i just try to stay away from it when possible. high blood pressure runs in the family and sodium definitely aggravates that. i do eat unsalted pretzels...
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oooohhh. Hey, I just found this, as part of a larger article, which estimated about 30% of people are "salt sensitive"
"It now appears that the blood pressure--salt connection is true only for certain "salt sensitive" people or groups."
Apparently the doc can test for salt sensitivity, and here are common groups:
* Female gender
* Age
* Obesity (abdominal obesity)
* Alcoholism
* African-American origin
* Level of blood pressure
* Isolated systolic hypertension (ISH)
* Low renin hypertension (hypertensive patients with a low plasma renin activity)
* Impaired glucose tolerance
* Diabetes
* Renal insufficiency
* Positive family history of hypertension
* (Higher) microalbuminuria
The most important of these is age. With increasing age, salt sensitivity increases. African-Americans also have a much higher prevalence of salt sensitivity than Caucasians. Another important factor is weight. Excess weight and obesity are clearly associated with increased salt sensitivity."
I found this snippet, too:
"So what's the problem? For starters, salt is a primary determinant of taste in food--fat, of course, is the other--and 80% of the salt we consume comes from processed foods, making it difficult to avoid. Then there's the kicker: While the government has been denouncing salt as a health hazard for decades, no amount of scientific effort has been able to dispense with the suspicions that it is not. Indeed, the controversy over the benefits, if any, of salt reduction now constitutes one of the longest running, most vitriolic, and surreal disputes in all of medicine."
http://www.junkscience.com/jan01/saltwars.htm
I looked for these because I've been hearing the past 20 years or so that salt has not been proven - studies have not been conclusive enough - to be a direct cause of high blood pressure. Suprised you haven't heard anything.
Our processed foods do contain ridiculous amounts, though - So I think it's good to steer clear.
Maybe I've never been overweight, maybe all these years I've simply been bloated from too much salt!
I'm pretty out of control with it.
P.S. Pretzels are pretty high on the ol' glycemic index. Just saying.