For years we have been told that salt is bad for us, that it increases our risk of high blood pressure, which in turn increases our risk of heart disease and stroke. We were told to try and reduce our salt intake, to look out for high levels of salt in processed foods and even in soda and bread. But now a new study comes along and says ‘nah, don’t worry, it’s not a big deal after all.”

Healthy food!

In fact this new study from Europe even has the temerity to suggest that high consumption might have some benefits. As my dear old mother would say, WTF! Though in her case it stands for “well, that’s funny”

This study followed 3,681 middle-aged Europeans (don’t you love how precise they are, not almost 3700 or more than 3600 but exactly 3,681) who didn’t have high blood pressure or heart disease at the start of the study. They were divided into three groups: low salt intake, moderate salt intake and high salt intake. There were 50 deaths in the low salt group, 24 in the moderate group and just 10 in the high salt group.

More salt less risk

The biggest shocker – based on all that we’d been warned about for years – was that the heart disease risk in the low salt group was 56 percent higher than the high salt group. So the less salt the study participants consumed the more likely they were to die of heart disease.

You mean all those years of not lavishing salt on my fish and chips were wasted!!!

What’s up with that!

What’s going on here? Is this just one of those aberrations where one research group comes up with a finding that is different from everything that has gone before, or is this that rare beast that shows that everything else that came before was rubbish and wrong! And the groups that have been telling us that salt is bad for us are not exactly scientific lightweights. They include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association, and the American Heart Association.

Well, the first thing to do here, as with all studies, is to look at who did it. This one is published by the Business School of Happiness which, despite the great name doesn’t carry quite the same weight as, say Harvard Medical School. The second thing is to look at what the study is promoting. If you follow the news release promoting it closely you find out that it links you to a new book that promotes, well, the new book. OK, two strikes against it so far. But the biggest strike is the third one, and that this pretty much contradicts everything that has gone before.

One of the best things you can do is never base anything you do on one study, no matter how much you would like to. There are thousands of new studies that come out every month, some are bound to contradict others that have gone before. The key is to look at the overall weight of the evidence not just the bits that suit you. In this case, most evidence, most studies, most scientific bodies still say salt is a problem, that it is linked to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke and so you really should try and limit your consumption of it.

To say otherwise, based on this one study, would be to insalt your intelligence.

A woman I work with – let’s call her Carolyn, because that’s her name – recently underwent back surgery. She says since the surgery she’s been in some pain, not just in her back but pretty much throughout her body. At first she thought it was just the usual recovery process, but as the pain persisted she did what many people do today, she went online and found out what was going on.

Carolyn found that part of the problem was that her body was stressed from years of living with a bad back, and from the surgery to repair it. Fortunately she didn’t just find out what the problem was, she also found out the solution. Stretching. Her muscles were taut and tight, her tendons and ligaments rigid. So that evening she did some very gentle stretching, nothing wild, and that night she slept like a log, and woke up the next morning feeling relaxed and refreshed and revived.

What Carolyn did wasn’t a miracle. It didn’t involve any medications or an elaborate therapy program. All she did was stretch. She’s been doing it every day since then, a bit at a time, in the morning, in the evening, even in the office during the day. And she says it’s given her a spring in her step and a new sense of energy.

Carolyn’s experience is a reminder that small changes can have a big impact. Even something as simple as gentle stretching helped her sleep better, feel better, think better. Not a bad return on such a small investment.

It’s not just confined to exercise or activity either. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that if Americans reduced their consumption of salt, even just a little – and by a little I mean just half a teaspoon a day -  they could reduce their risk of heart disease, stroke or heart attacks as much as if they stopped smoking or cut their cholesterol level.

Half a teaspoon a day. That’s tiny. And you get to live longer. Who could say no to that.

It’s important to remember these details as we reach the end of January and a lot of people’s New Year’s Resolutions are either already history or are wobbling precariously. Maybe you started out trying too much, or taking on too many challenges. So this is a good time to refine your resolution. Don’t dump it, just modify it. By now you have a good idea of what is reasonable, what is practical, what is achievable.

Scaling back your overly ambitious plan is not failure it’s smart. What you are doing is setting yourself up for long-term success by creating a realistic plan, one that fits your lifestyle and keeps you heading towards your goal.

Remember, you didn’t get overweight overnight, nor are you going to get slim and trim by the end of the month or even the year. It takes time. But it can be done. As long as you do it bit by bit.

Carolyn’s back problems didn’t happen with one single incident, and they didn’t disappear with her surgery. But what she has found is that by taking things into her own hands and adding something as simple as stretching into her daily routine she has set herself on the path to recovery, to a more active, more engaged, healthier life.

And that’s something we could all live with.

The title to this piece is the opening line to a song by Simon and Garfunkel. Strangely the song is called the 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) – and that alone dates it – even though there is no obvious reference to either 59th Street or a bridge.  The line sprang to mind when I read a new study that pointed out the faster you eat the more likely you are to overeat.

The study is in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, and it says that eating a meal quickly, as opposed to slowly,  limits the release of hormones in the stomach that signal the brain you are full. Because your brain isn’t getting the message that the stomach has had enough it just allows you to carry on eating longer, consuming more food than you need.

Here’s the fun part – how they did it! The researchers gave the study participants bowls of ice cream (300ml to be precise) and got them to eat them at different rates on different days. One day they’d scarf them down. The next they’d take their time and savor each mouthful of delicious, full-fat ice cream.

Before and after each bowl the researchers took blood samples from the participants and measured them for glucose, insulin, plasma lipids and gut hormones. They found that those who took 30 minutes to eat the ice cream had higher concentrations of the hormones that signal the brain “I’m done, stop eating now”, compared to people who wolfed the stuff down in half the time.

The researchers say this could help explain why many people are overweight. They are so busy and eat in such a hurry that they are not paying attention to what they eat or how they eat it. That means they’re more likely to eat crappy food, and more likely to wolf it down fast because they are in a hurry and therefore more likely to eat more of it than they need.

It’s a triple whammy.

So next time you are sitting down to eat, spend a few minutes ahead of time thinking about what you are going to eat, and try to spend a little time during the meal focusing on how fast you are eating it. Savor the taste and smell. Don’t just shovel it in. You might find that not only do you eat less, you also enjoy it more.

To paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel; slow down, you masticate too fast, you’ve got to make that meal last.

Docs Diss Obese Patients

As if being overweight or obese isn’t hard enough (think of all the extra diseases it puts you at risk of from heart disease and diabetes to cancer) now comes a new study saying that the people we rely on to help us lose that weight, are more likely to disrespect us because of our weight.

The study, in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, says that obese patients get less respect from physicians than normal-weight patients. In fact the researchers, who surveyed 40 doctors and 238 patients in the Baltimore area, found that the physicians had little respect for around 40 percent of their patients and said that the patients body mass index was “significantly and negatively associated” with respect.

In other words, the fatter the patient the more likely the doctor was to have lower respect for them. Nice eh!

The biggest problem with this is not just that the docs were being hideously insensitive, it’s that many of the patients picked up on the disrespect and said that made them less likely to consult the doctor, and not just about their weight but about other important health issues too such as pap smears, mammograms or other screenings. And that put them at even greater risk of yet more health problems.

The researchers say this is a strong signal that doctors really need to be aware of how they behave in front of patients, and to keep their own personal feelings in check. Because what starts out as a dollop of disrespect from the doc could end up in a deadly disease in a patient who decided not to get help because they hated the way they were treated.

Do Your Kidneys a Favor – Skip the Salt and Soda

Millions of Americans drink a couple of sodas a day and liberally sprinkle their food with salt. It’s a pretty nasty combination as far as the health of your kidneys is concerned, and two new studies reinforce that.

The studies were presented at a meeting of the American Society of Nephrology’s annual meeting in San Diego.

One of them followed 3,000 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study over 11 years and found that the higher the salt intake over time the lower the kidney function. The second study looked at the same group of women but instead focused on soda intake. They found pretty much the same. The more soft drinks and sodas the woman drank the higher the likelihood of impaired kidney function.

Now kidneys are not something you want to mess around with. They help clean out all sorts of nasty stuff from your blood and help regulate your blood pressure and other assorted vital functions. In short, without them you’d be in deep trouble.

So next time you are staring at a vending machine wondering what deliciously salty snack you’ll buy and which fabulously sugary beverage you’ll wash it down with, think again. Get a bottle of water and an apple. Your kidneys will thank you for it.

Schools are supposed to be institutions that feed children’s minds, filling them up with thoughts and reasoning. Instead too many schools seem to be places where children fill up their up bodies with junk and candy and “crap” from vending machines. And that investment in vending machines is undermining the investment in kids brains.

We need to ban vending machines from schools. I know they make money for schools, helping them pay for supplies and even some classes, but they undermine the school’s basic mission, namely to educate the next generation.

Think about it. Vending machines are a form of attractively packed, well-designed drug delivery system. They’re helping kids pump crap into their bodies, junk that undermines children’s  ability to get the stuff they really need, knowledge, into their brain.

Candy, sodas, chips, all the stuff you find in vending machines have an impact on the brain, impairing its ability to think clearly. A study by researchers at the University Laboratory of Physiology in Oxford, England found that transfats, a common ingredient in a lot of junk food, push out the essential fats that children’s brains need, and interfere with the way the brain sends and receives signals. In short, it clogs up the machinery of the mind.

All that fat and sugar and salt is having a direct impact on children’s performance in the classroom. A study by the New School Food Trust in the UK, found that children who eat a healthy diet do better in school, are more focused in the classroom and better able to learn, and they achieve better exam results compared to children who eat a poor diet, one heavy in sodas, chocolate and chips.

If a school’s primary purpose is to improve the minds of its charges then what possible justification can there be for having machines around that directly undermine that goal. It seems ridiculous to have something in the school corridor that makes it hard for the teacher to do their job properly in the classroom.

It doesn’t have to be that way. California has already banned soda vending machines in elementary and junior high schools and two schools in Orange County, California (Heritage Oak Private School and Whittier Christian High School) have replaced their junky vending machines with ones containing healthier snacks, without seeing a drop in income.

It can be done. You just have to put your mind to it. Of course, if that mind is addled by fat and salt and sugar courtesy of a vending machine, it may not be able to think fast enough or clearly enough to do what it should have done a long time ago.

Schools need money, but not at the expense of undermining their basic mission. If it comes to a choice between school supplies and children’s brain, it’s an easy one to make.

Stop eating!  Just kidding, but really  the answer is  in your brain!  It turns out, according to David A. Kessler, M.D., grad of Harvard Medical School, doctor, lawyer, medical school dean, not to mention the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under 2 presidents, and author of a new book, “What the hell!  I’m Fat again!”,(sorry, that’s not exactly the title), Dr. Kessler’s fascinating new book is, “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite” (Rodale). (I like my title better).

You’ve gotta love this guy!  Dr. Kessler was trying to find out why we overeat, and he wanted to know why he struggles with overeating himself, he says he has gained and lost his weight several times over and has  suits of every size in his closet to prove it. 

He wanted to find out what was in our food and why do we overeat?  Why can’t we have the willpower to stop eating when we’re full and the fortitude to stay away from foods that aren’t good for our health.  This required some heavy duty research, so Dr. David A. Kessler, M.D., lawyer and former commissioner of the FDA went dumpster diving!

Really, picture a dark and stormy night, the scene is the back of a fast food restaurant, where the garbage bins are located.  A car pulls up next to the dumpster, a lone man gets out and immediately begins to pull packages from the dumpster, his flashlight beam scans the garbage not for food but for the labels and the information they reveal.

That’s right, Dr. Kessler was looking for information that the fast food restaurants did not want to reveal.  Information on fat, sweet, and salt (sodium) content.  Why?  Because Dr. Kessler wanted to know the chemistry of food that affects the function of the brain, particularly that shut off valve in the brain that says, “Stop, you have had enough”…or “This food is not healthy for you, therefore do not eat it.”

Kessler was successful at the FDA in pushing for nutritional labels on foods sold through retail outlets, but he  stopped short of requiring the same for restaurants. Yet if suppliers ship across state lines,  the ingredients must be printed on the box. The boxes and their labels were what Kessler was after.  And he found out a lot!

The labels showed the foods were packed  with salt, fat and sugars, far beyond what a diner might expect by reading the menu, Kessler said. The ingredient list for Southwestern Egg Rolls mentioned salt eight different times; sugars showed up five times.

The “egg rolls,” which are deep-fried in fat, contain chicken that has been chopped up like meatloaf to give it a “melt in the mouth” quality that also makes it faster to eat. By the time a diner has finished, she has consumed 910 calories, 57 grams of fat and 1,960 milligrams of sodium.  And that’s just an appetizer!

Dr. Kessler now has a surprising and worrying new theory about why so many of us are overweight.It is in his new book, “The End of Overeating,” and it is startling. Foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain’s chemistry in ways that compel people to overeat. “Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology — what’s going on in our body,” he said. “The real question is what’s going on in our brain.”

As for me, knowing that fast food manufacturers are using salt, fat, and sweet to manipulate my brain into thinking “Eat More” leaves a bad taste in my mouth.