Blaming dietary sodium for high blood pressure is too simplistic

Blaming dietary sodium for high blood pressure is too simplistic; the real problem may be mineral deficiencies
by: Dani Veracity

In popular thought, disputing sodium's link to high blood pressure is equivalent to questioning whether the earth is round. However, some experts now believe that salt will not raise blood pressure in everyone, just in people who are "salt sensitive." Only 10 percent of the population is salt sensitive, according to BioMarkers by Professor William Evans and Dr. Irwin H. Rosenberg.

Of course, far more than 10 percent of us suffer from hypertension, meaning that if these experts are correct, salt intake cannot be the only factor contributing to America's high blood pressure epidemic. In fact, according to Gayle Reichler's book, Active Wellness, only half the people with hypertension have high blood pressure because of their salt intake, making cutting down on the amount of salt you eat a good step toward lower blood pressure, but not a cure-all.

Scientists are still unsure why some people's bodies respond to salt more drastically than others; however, most theories focus on sodium's in vivo interaction with potassium, magnesium and calcium. In fact, some experts believe that these nutrients play more of a role in these individuals' salt sensitivity than sodium itself. Deficiencies in these complementary minerals may actually be the larger culprit in hypertension. Read more…

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Omega-3 Fatty Acids Guard Against Advanced Prostate Cancer

(HealthDay News) -- Omega-3 fatty acids could help protect men against advanced prostate cancer, researchers report.

Eating fish at least once a week may reduce the risk of developing advanced prostate cancer even if one is genetically predisposed to developing the disease, but more work is needed to see if the association is real, the researchers said.

"Eating a healthy diet that includes dark fish and other sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids may decrease risk of more advanced prostate cancer even if one has a cox-2 genetic predisposition to the disease," said lead researcher John S. Witte, a professor in the Institute for Human Genetics, Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

The report is published in the April issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

For the study, Witte's team studied 466 men with aggressive prostate cancer and 478 healthy men. The researchers collected data on the men's diet and genetically assessed nine cox-2 single nucleotide polymorphisms. Read more…

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How the best natural beauty products can help you lose weight

By Celeste M. Smucker, MPH, PhD

In the United States lots of us are over weight, including nearly two-thirds of adults and one-third of children. The Brookings Institution estimates this epidemic costs our economy nearly $215 billion every year, a figure which includes costs of medical care as well as lost productivity. While eating too much is the immediate cause of weight gain, in fact there are many other issues that enter the equation including environmental toxins which have a disruptive impact on metabolisms making weight gain more likely, and weight loss more difficult. Unfortunately it is not uncommon to find these toxins in widely used skin care products, so using the best natural beauty products can help. Read more…

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Novel Method to Effectively Combat Oxidative Liver Damage

By Kirk Stokel

Little known to the general public is the silent epidemic of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD, which afflicts up to 40% of all Americans.1 NAFLD particularly targets those who carry around excess weight. For the nearly 70% of Americans who are overweight or obese,2 that figure rises to a shocking 50-100%.3,4

Ominously, NAFLD sets the stage for a progression of lethal diseases that can include cancer, atherosclerosis, and diabetes.5,6 Risk of death from all causes skyrockets more than four-fold in NAFLD sufferers - and more than eight-fold for early cardiac death.7

Because of both physician and patient ignorance, most victims of NAFLD are entirely unaware they have it.

No drug can halt this widespread disease's potentially lethal progress.3

The exciting news is scientists have recently identified a novel intervention to halt two of NAFLD's core pathologic processes - lipid peroxidation, wherein excess liver fat turns rancid under continuous assault from free radicals, and rampant oxidative damage from disease-induced mitochondrial dysfunction. Readmore…

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Study Compares Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair Methods

(HealthDay News) -- A less-invasive method of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair reduces the short-term risk of death, according to a new U.S. study.

The interim findings are from a nine-year multicenter trial comparing patient outcomes after endovascular and open surgical repair of AAA. The report included postoperative outcomes of up to two years (average 1.8 years of follow-up) for 881 patients, aged 49 or older, who had endovascular repair (444) or open repair (437).

Endovascular repair is performed through a catheter inserted into an artery. Open repair involves an abdominal incision. Of the 45,000 patients in the United States who undergo elective repair of an unruptured AAA each year, more than 1,400 die in the perioperative period -- the first 30 days after surgery or inpatient status. There's limited data available about whether short-term survival is better after endovascular repair compared to open repair. Readmore…

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