One of the main reasons given for being reluctant to accept the claims of Happeh Theory is that “Scientists do not agree with what you say”.
Scientists are not infallible. They make mistakes constantly. The purpose of this series of blog entries that provides examples of scientific mistakes, is to show the reader who doubts Happeh Theory because of what some scientist said is not the act of a rational mind.
The news story that is the subject of this blog entry reports that after American doctors have been advising patients for decades to reduce their salt intake to prevent heart attack, a European study found that a reduced salt intake actually increased the likelihood of a heart attack.
The American scientists have been wrong for decades about something that can kill people.
Were those scientists wrong because they were incompetent?
Did scientists give out advice they knew would give people who followed it a heart attack for political reasons? The scientists providing the advice are part of one ethnic group that wants the members of the ethnic groups following their advice to have heart attacks because they do not like them?
Or was the advice given out because scientists knew that a patient who has a heart attack is going to be paying the doctor lots of money for heart attack care, and possibly some type of profitable heart surgery?
Either way, why would you believe the words of an incompetent scientist, or a lying scientist, over the claims of Happeh Theory?
The original news story is reprinted next.
Doctors have long encouraged patients to slash their salt intake for good heart health.
A European study finds that those who ingest less sodium have an increased risk of cardiovascular death, but U.S. experts are taking the results with a grain of salt.
The American Heart Association encourages people to consume no more than 1,500 milligrams a day of sodium to reduce their risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks, stroke and kidney disease. This is less than half of what people consume now.
One reason for this advice: Elevated blood pressure is a major public health problem approximately 90% of all Americans will develop hypertension over their lifetime, the heart association says.
But a new European population study coordinated in Belgium raises questions about sodium and its effect on the heart.
Researchers followed 3,681 people, average age 40, for about eight years, testing sodium excretion in the urine. They found that systolic blood pressure (the top number) was slightly lower in those who excreted less sodium, but this didn’t translate into a lower risk of cardiovascular death — in fact, those with lower sodium excretion had an increased risk of cardiovascular death. The findings were consistent in participants younger and older than 60 years.
Jan Staessen, a professor of medicine at the University of Leuven in Belgium and one of the authors of the study in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, says this study does not support the recommendation of a general reduction of salt intake for everyone, although salt reduction could be beneficial in lowering the blood pressure of people with hypertension. “Lower sodium intake is recommended for people with high blood pressure and people with heart failure, but recommending it to the population as a whole, I wouldn’t do without proving it’s completely safe,” he says.
“If one lowers sodium intake to lower blood pressure, this change in sodium activates several systems (including the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system) that conserve sodium, and those systems are implicated in disease processes such as damaging the arterial wall and kidneys,” Staessen says,
This study may apply to Americans of white European descent, but it might less applicable to blacks because they are believed to be more salt sensitive, he says.
The research is already drawing fire from medical experts here. Ralph Sacco, president of the American Heart Association and chairman of neurology at the University of Miami, says this is only one study of a relatively young, mostly white population and blood pressure tends to rise with age and affect African-Americans disproportionately.
“We have based our recommendations on the many scientific studies which show a strong relationship between reduced sodium consumption and a lower risk of heart attacks, congestive heart failure and stroke,” he says. “There are good randomized, controlled studies the gold standard of scientific studies that show a lower sodium diet has a meaningful effect on blood pressure.”
Gina Lundberg, a preventive cardiologist in Atlanta, supports the 1,500-milligram guideline. “We’re all eating too much sodium because we eat too many prepared, processed foods.”
Leaders in the salt industry applaud the new research. This study basically says that salt reduction to reduce cardiovascular disease is a strategy that is not going to work, says Morton Satin, vice president of science and research for the Salt Institute, an industry group.