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Comment by jp555 | Hacker News Reader

here's another great one from Alan Aragon: "Avoid food avoidance."

I think the salt thing is somewhat a problem of causation vs. correlation. If you have hypertension it can be a good idea to limit salt intake; but salt intake does not cause hypertension.

I'm wary of any health advice that stems solely from epidemiological study. I'm not sure why we so easily take a hypothesis as a conclusion, and epidemiological study, while valuable, can only produce a hypothesis that requires a controlled experiment to test. Yet it seems 90% of the "red meat causes diabetes!" articles we see are usually framing a hypothesis as the result of an experiment.

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I have an anecdote I feel like sharing. Please take it with a grain of... you know.

I've had hypertension since I was 17, but I never got on medication. I recently made the decision to completely give up added salt. I only ate my own salt-free cooking for about 6 months and I ate a diet high in meat, fish and vegetables. I did not pick up exercise. My BP dropped from 145/90 to 125/80 within the first month. I check my BP weekly and my average BP is 120/75.

My parents cook with a lot of salt, I notice this now when I eat at their place. I am confident that the high salt diet they "gave" me for so many years, combined with restaurant food, was the direct cause of my 5 year strugle with high blood pressure.

I could be wrong, but I am nonetheless very happy with the results of my diet based solution.

I think you'd agree that having hypertension at 17 is not typical, but being 17 and consuming a LOT of salt (junk food) is very typical.

So which is more likely; you're genetically predisposed to hypertension, which your high-salt diet exposed in your teens, or that your high-salt diet caused your hypertension?

I doubt your conclusion, but it does make me happy that you've found a solution that works for you!

Thanks. I see what you're saying and I think you're right. The point you were originally making about causation vs correlation is more clear to me now. I guess I'm guilty of letting myself get too excited over what worked for me.

Exactly. Aragon is one of the few voices of reason in this ridiculous field.

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