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A Pillar of Salt

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Sodom and Gomorrah motif from the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel, 1493. Note Lot’s wife, already transformed into a salt pillar, in the center.

Looking back, perhaps Lot’s wife would disagree, but new studies have found that salt is probably not going to kill us. Several related papers from the New England Journal of Medicine cast doubt on the USDA and Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines that limiting the consumption of salt will reduce the risks of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and stroke.

The WSJ points out in Review & Outlook how the illusion of government regulation, particularly in medicine, often provides erroneous guidelines that apply to everyone—from how much salt you should eat, to how often you need to be screened for cancer, to should you be treated with cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Many theories of food and health are no more than superstition, so any nutrition advice that is more specific than moderation and more vegetables ought to be taken with a grain of—well, you know.

Read here about the growing evidence that sodium is harmful is flimsy at best and pseudo-science at worst.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.