Bad Science?
BAD SCIENCE?
I’ve read some outlandish studies about salt intake, but this one below may take the cake. Could the headlines out of Finland next month read something like this: “Finnish Department of Science Minister under Investigation for Smoking Crack?”
Fortunately, the Salt Institute quickly responded to the study: “…to correlate salt intake with the rise in obesity ignores evidence that those on higher salt diets are actually leaner than other Americans. Just as obviously, the longest-lived national population in the world, the Japanese, have much higher salt intakes than Americans.”
Finnish study links salt intake to obesity
11/8/2006 -
The research, published in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases (Vol. 49, pp. 59-75), could increase pressure on the food industry to reduce salt content in a wide range of foods.
“The increased intake in salt [since] has apparently played an important role in the increase in the consumption of soft drinks and, hence, also in the increase in energy intake,” wrote authors Dr. Heikki Karppanen of the University of Helsinki and Dr. Eero Mervaala of the University of Kuopio.
“Higher consumption of sweetened beverages was associated with both a greater magnitude of weight gain and an increase risk for development of type-2 diabetes,” they wrote.
Scientists from Finland have claimed that comprehensive salt reduction would be a potentially powerful means to combat obesity, linked to lower consumption of high-energy beverages.
