Does Salt CAUSE High Blood Pressure?

Click image for Details on European Study

Does salt causes high blood pressure / hypertension?

High blood pressure is also called hypertension. Few question the advice they’ve heard for years about reducing salt to control high blood pressure or keep hypertension under control.

They should – and here’s why:

I’ve been researching nutrition since I started breeding Thoroughbreds to race in 1978. To excel as an athlete – horse or human – requires far higher levels of quality nutrition and health than a horse that is a pasture ornament or a person sitting behind a desk all day does.

Anyone who has raised cattle, or Thoroughbred racing prospects, or studied agriculture knows the importance of fertilizing pastures and providing free choice salt. I know from soil test results that most soil is deficient in magnesium, potassium and other macro and micro nutrients.

When I was breeding Thoroughbred to race, I moved to an area where pastures were lush because I realized you can not raise a truly healthy racing prospect without good grass (which is why so many top breeding farms are in Kentucky).

I moved to a county in Texas where most of the large feeder cattle operations are located (because of the grass). I had my soil tested. Calcium and phosphorous levels were VERY high, but because magnesium was within the normal range Texas A&M said nothing about it. 

The experts SHOULD have recommended additional magnesium
because in proportion to calcium and phosphorous it was too low.

I phoned their expert and discussed this oversight with them. AFTER I pointed out that in proportion to the calcium and phosphorous levels, magnesium was low, he agreed that it would be a good idea to supplement magnesium.

Beef from cattle raised on grass that is deficient or out of balance for magnesium will also be deficient – unless that nutrient is supplemented and NONE of the huge cattle ranching operations around me supplement for magnesium. Most employees of cattle ranches have Ag degrees and many of them went to Texas A&M so if they don’t recommend it or teach it those employees aren’t likely to be doing it.

It is far more likely that people sensitive to salt who have higher blood pressure are deficient in magnesium and/or potassium – as almost all people eating the Standard American Diet (aptly referred to by the acronym S.A.D.) are.

You can find much additional detail to assist you answering the question does salt raise blood pressure on IULren.com including this:

Recent study regarding sodium’s role in managing blood pressure
confirms hypertension is NOT caused by a salt consumption.

Neither is it lowered by simply cutting salt out of your diet.
How is it that table salt (sodium) is still getting such a bad rap and
becoming associated to high blood pressure?

The actual culprit it turns out is not salt,
but how your body deals with sodium and its proportion
to the amount of potassium, calcium and magnesium in your body.

Doctors KNOW at least part of this because those taking diuretics such as Lasix aka Salix are always also put on potassium supplements. Doctors get almost no training in nutrition even though we should know by now that we really ARE what we eat.

European researchers found that people with low salt intakes
were more likely to die of heart disease
than people with higher
salt intakes.

The study surveyed 3,681 people living in various European countries over an eight year period . At the end of that eight year period, 56% of participants with low sodium intakes were more likely to have died from cardiovascular illness than those with high salt intakes. The study published in yesterday’s Journal of the American Medical Association refutes what has become a gospel truth in the US prompting government health experts to insist Americans decrease their salt intake in the quest to reduce hypertension and cardiovascular disease risks.

The European study found that of the 3,681 people followed over the years, 2,100 of those participants with normal blood pressure at the start of the study, their salt intake had no effect on the development of high blood pressure. The study, on the outset, appears to contradict the US government health and diet recommendation that Americans reduce their salt intake to prevent cardiovascular disease.

But Harvard nutrition experts say the study is complete hogwash.

American Universities rely on funding for research from Big Pharma and multi-national corporations. While SOME researchers have had the integrity and courage to publish honest studies, when they do so they become ostracized, no longer  receive grants to do their research and can even lose their jobs.

I will add links to this text to document what has happened to researchers who insisted on publishing what the moneyed interested wanted them to publish when I can make the time. In the meantime:

I CHALLENGE ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THEY CAN PROVE THIS IS FALSE TO DO SO >>> LEAVE YOUR EVIDENCE AND LINKS IN THE COMMENTS.

If you are wise
you will NOT rely on evidence
provided by those being paid
to generate research that ‘proves’
what the people paying you
want it to prove.

Instead, rely on this age old wisdom passed down through generations that were far healthier than we are today because they were not conditioned by the media:

“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.”
Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 BCE)

WHAT CAUSES HYPERTENSION?

• The Blood Pressure Hoax