Day 60: Salt is Good | Fish Oil Kills

Day 60 brings with it some shocking revelation.  Since I have been thinking about nutrition lately I started paying attention to articles on food.  What crosses my path today blew my mind.

It seems the CDC is getting ready to correct an error of monstrous proportions.  For years we have been bombarded with information on salt and how terrible it is for you. Even though it is a vital component for life the wizards of smart blamed salt for just about everything that ailed you.  High salt intake was blamed for high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, etc. 

Hindsight, which is always 20/20 finds that for the most part a lot of what we believed about the evils of salt were anecdotal (wait, didn’t we learn about anecdotal science from the Hot Diet?) It seems that a person can consume up to 3 teaspoons of salt a day with no problems and that the average person’s diet doesn’t come close to maxing it out. 

Interestingly enough it was found that not consuming enough salt had adverse effects on a person’s heart and blood pressure.  Really, if you are using anecdotal evidence as a basis of scientific conclusion are we, as people, not walking bags of salt water?  Why else would soaking in salt help aching muscles or help heal minor cuts and bruises?

Now on to fish oil: We have been told that we all need to consume more fish oil.  Again the argument was that fish oil helped with your heart and cardio vascular system.  Fish oil is supposed to help prevent arthritis, prevent behavior problems in children, and even boost your brain power.  Well, we have a story from our friends across the sea and it turns out that maybe we should lay off the fish oil.  Not only that but you may not want to consume fish as much as originally thought unless you want to get cancer.

It turns out that by taking an omega-3 pill a day may increase your chances of getting prostate cancer, the aggressive kind, by 70%.  Even in low doses of omega-3 increase your chances of low-grade prostate cancer by 44%.   

The story may have come from the UK but the “science” was done at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.  Fish, like red meat, now needs to be only consumed in “moderation.”  My favorite part of the story is when they concede that they still don’t know what it is in omega-3’s that may suppress the immune system, damage our DNA, or how it may aid tumours in growing and spreading. 

The main reason why I am pointing this out is because it all goes back to what I have been saying.  We really don’t know exactly how our bodies use nutrition or what exactly we need to do to properly fuel out bodies.  The only thing we are sure about is burn more calories than you take in and you lose weight.  Maybe??

You can check both stories out yourself. 

For Salt click HERE.

For Omega-3 click HERE.

Daily Recap:

Matt: Mowed the yard 45 minutes

Kelly: Treadmill Cardio Workout 30 Minutes.