Why We're All Going to Enjoy Life Just a Little More Quite Soon

Salt makes dirty science. On the advice of the health authorities, from years now we've all been holding back that extra dash from the shaker. Reduced salt intake fights hypertension and saves lives, right? Nope. There was an exhaustive review of the subject in a news article in Science five years ago. Amazingly, only 10 of 78 salt-hypertension trials conducted to 1998 were randomized - in part probably reflecting the lousy quality of research that MDs without scientific training tend to produce. Taken together, these studies suggest that although extreme reductions in salt intake are of benefit to hypertensives, blood pressure in normal individuals is barely effected. The push for reduced salt intake by the whole population benefits only the hypertensive subset of the population - everybody else pays in reduced enjoyment of food. Now, Salt companies are using the new Data Quality Act to demand access to the data produced by NIH sponsored salt research. Presumably, they want to reanalyzed the raw data to demonstrate that non-hypertensives derive little or no benefit from current low salt guidelines. In a news article in the current issue of Nature, researchers defend their stance, claiming the companies already have all the necessary data. Yet one of the requests is for access to the initial blood pressures of test subjects - surely a crucial piece of information for interpreting any results. Here's hoping that the courts will rule that the data be released and the obfuscation of health researchers will exposed. In the meantime, if you're not hypertensive, add a pinch of salt for good luck. And maybe later, some of that good ol' MSG!