Canadian Medical Association Journal compared salt content of 2,124 items from fast food establishments such as Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Subway.
U.S. fast foods are often more than twice as salt-laden as those of other countries.
Many low-fat foods rely on salt for flavor. (One packet of KFC’s Marzetti Light Italian Dressing might only have 15 calories and 0.5 grams fat, but it also has 510 mg sodium.) Look at Bread- No. 1 source of refined salt consumption in U.S. diet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just one 6-inch Roasted Garlic loaf from Subway–just the bread, no meat, no cheeses, no nothing–has 1,260 mg sodium, about as much as 14 strips of bacon.
Refined Salt Causes Autoimmune Disease – Yale University studied the role of T helper cells in the body. These activate and ‘help’ other cells to fight dangerous pathogens such as bacteria or viruses and battle infections. Research suggests that a subset of these cells – known as Th17 cells – also play an important role in the development of autoimmune diseases. They found that exposing these cells in a lab to a table salt solution made them act more ‘aggressively.’
They found that mice fed a diet high in refined salts saw a dramatic increase in the number of Th17 cells in their nervous systems that promoted inflammation & more likely to develop a severe form of a disease associated with multiple sclerosis in humans. They also revealed that salt exposure increased the levels of cytokines released by Th17 cells 10 x more than normal. Cytokines are proteins used to pass messages between cells.
Multiple Schlerosis is my interest here…Ralf Linker, from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said:
‘These findings are an important contribution to the understanding of multiple sclerosis and may offer new targets for a better treatment of the disease, for which at present there is no cure.’
It develops when the immune system mistakes the myelin that surrounds the nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord for a foreign body
& attacks to strips the myelin off the nerves fibres, which disrupts messages passed between the brain and body causing problems with speech, vision and balance.
Professor David Hafler, from Yale University, said that nature had clearly not intended for the immune system to attack its host body, so he expected that an external factor was playing a part and ‘These are not diseases of bad genes alone or diseases caused by the environment, but diseases of a bad interaction between genes and the environment. ..Today, Western diets all have high salt content and that has led to increase in hypertension and perhaps autoimmune disease as well.’ …’It would be interesting to find out if patients with psoriasis can alleviate their symptoms by reducing their salt intake,’ they said.
It is wise then to Stick to Good Salts as refined, processed and bleached salts are a problem.
Salt is critical to our health and is the most readily available nonmetallic mineral in the world. Our bodies are not designed to processed refined sodium chloride with no nutritional value. However, when a good salt is filled with dozens of minerals such as in rose-coloured crystals of Himalayan rock salt or the grey texture of Celtic salt, our bodies benefit tremendously for their incorporation into our diet.
Dr Barbara Hendel, Water & Salt, The Essence of Life states:
“These mineral salts are identical to the elements of which our bodies have been built and were originally found in the primal ocean from where life originated…” We have salty tears and salty perspiration. The chemical and mineral composition of our blood and body fluids are similar to sea water. From the beginning of life, as unborn babies, we are encased in a sack of salty fluid…In water, salt dissolves into mineral ions, to conduct electrical nerve impulses that drive muscle movement and thought processes. Just the simple act of drinking a glass of water requires millions of instructions that come from mineral ions. They’re also needed to balance PH levels in the body…Mineral salts, are healthy because they give your body the variety of mineral ions needed to balance its functions, remain healthy and heal. These healing properties have long been recognised in central Europe. At Wieliczka in Poland, a hospital has been carved in a salt mountain. Asthmatics and patients with lung disease and allergies find that breathing air in the saline underground chambers helps improve symptoms in 90 per cent of cases. …too few minerals, rather than too much salt, may be to blame for health problems. ”
That makes a lot of common/ salty sense then.
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