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Comment by gojomo | Hacker News Reader

The public health disaster of the 2020s: blowback from the sodium crusade of the 2010s.

Wherein it will be found that:

- sodium isn't nearly as bad as was thought -- the numbers shopped by advocacy groups are found to have been based on flimsy studies and extrapolations -- and many population subgroups already had sodium deficiencies at the beginning of the crusade, which were worsened by the new standards

- most people unconsciously sought a homeostatic balance, and thus increased their consumption of other foods to try to restore the salt levels that were lessened-by-statutes, aggravating other health issues

- novel salt substitutes cooked up in the labs had unforeseen negative health effects

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Doubtful. The amount of sodium in processed food products and restaurant food is absurdly high. Which population groups have sodium deficiencies? certainly none in the 1st world, and probably none in the 2nd & 3rd world.

Objectively define 'absurdly high'.

My suggestion of some groups already having deficiency is conjecture based on little hints here and there; more study is needed. My guesses would be: vegetarians, athletes who avoid processed food, ethnicities with a longer history of eating heavily-salted foods, some elderly, some pregnant women.

I suppose that by subjecting the entire population to an enforced low-sodium diet, and seeing who starts suffering from fatigue and early mortality, we'll find out soon enough.

I disagree. I think if anything there are more people dying because of high blood pressure and other illnesses linked through it than low-sodium issues. Besides, the fix to low-sodium, eat more salt. The fix to high blood pressure, exercise and medication.

Honest question, are we sure salt is that culpable in high blood pressure? Anyone have recent credible studies either way?

Sorry, I can't be bothered to cite a study.

But it seems to have some effect, and eating some more salt is also recommended for people with too low blood pressure.

5000-7000mg of sodium per day

or, per food product: anything that has more than 1.5x as much sodium as it does calories

> 1.5x as much sodium as it does calories

Unit mismatch? Do you assume mols of sodium?

yes, unit mismatch. calories x 1.5 mg sodium. for instance, I just had a bag of cheetos from the vending machine. 200 calories, 360 mg sodium. probably not great.

OK. I stick to SI units whenever possible. Avoids confusion.

Are cheetos a very `light' snack? I just took some "Hula Hoops" out of our vending machine and that 34g pack had almost 1000 times the number of calories you report. The "Hula Hoops" have 727 kJ / 174 kcal and 0.3g Sodium, and they also report a "salt equivalent" of 0.8g.

In the US, calories on a package are always reported as kcal, so they are approximately equal.

I agree with your general sentiment, as we've seen with HFCS, Margarine, etc.

However, I think this piece is something entirely different. It's not a salt substitute -- they're essentially increasing the surface area of the salt.

Changing the taste profile is enough for potential harm. There's a growing criticism of artificial sweeteners on the basis that they break your body's learned mapping of sweetness-to-calories -- likely resulting in overcompensation consumption of other less-sweet foods, perhaps leaving people worse off than with natural sweeteners.

By the same mechanism, a salt that tastes saltier but results in less sodium reaching the blood is enough to similarly break the learned relationship between taste and change in internal sodium levels. If your body is seeking a target sodium level, it will then crave even more salty-taste to reach its internal targets. Good for PepsiCo's many salty product lines; not necessarily good for consumers.

Unlikely. Sodium is easy to add to your diet, just sprinkle some salt on. It's difficult to take out of factory food that is manufactured with it.

Personally, I'd rather have no salt in my food and be able to add what I want later. After you stop eating so much of it, you start to notice the natural flavors in foods better anyway, and don't need to add so much.

"blowback from the sodium crusade of the 2010s"

It's already here. Cardiologists advise their patients to cut back on salt, and they turn up later with goiters caused by iodine deficiency, iodized salt previously being their main source of iodine.

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