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Biotech / Medical : VD's Model Portfolio & Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rocketman who wrote (4345)	3/13/1998 4:14:00 AM
From: Rocketman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9719

More from the salt article and some ranting: <<<<<<< High blood pressure is associated with a higher risk of stroke and heart attack. About 80 percent of the Western world's population has higher blood pressure than it should, MacGregor said. But Alderman said focusing on blood pressure misses the point. ''That's not good enough. You've got to look at the end point study,'' Alderman said. ''There's no evidence that a low-sodium diet makes you live longer.'' Besides lowering blood pressure, cutting salt also raises blood renin, a hormone that constricts blood vessels and raises risk of heart attack, Alderman said. Low-salt diets also increase insulin resistance and nerve activity, he said. >>>>>>>> What bothers me is how they can conclude that 80% of us have too high of a blood pressure. Of course the other 20% must be "normal". Seems like a pretty narrow definition of normal! Same kind of dogma is used in cholesterol. Of course after a while they found out that there is good and bad cholesterol. But of course the vast majority of us do not have normal cholesterol levels. All of this seems like marketing to me, a great way to sell pharmaceuticals and run up doctor bills. Now the feds want to dilute the strict California Organic Food regs and allow a bunch of crap into the system. Nothing like systematic poisoning through the food supply. Of course DDT was a miracle chemical. I've got a great early '50s gardening book that recommends putting DDT on just about everything, including your pets and their bedding....just spread the stuff everywhere. So, what is the current chemical bad guy in the environment? Why MTBE, the wonderous suspected carcinogen gasoline additive that's supposed to reduce air pollution. Well, now it is showing up in the water supplies because it isn't completely combusted by engines, doesn't readily breakdown, transports rapidly through the ground and screwed up countless engines to boot. I don't think it is too wise to spoil the water to save the air. There is also a lot of anecdotal evidence that MTBE is increasing the incidence of asthma in areas where it is in fuel. Of course this compound has not been extensively studied, but what the hell the companies that makes it thinks it is great stuff. Even the oil refiners don't want to use it, but the gov't requires it. Of course in another decade or so maybe they will have enough studies done to know. Of course cigarettes never used to cause cancer or be addictive, until recently of course. The system is definitely broken! RantMan

To: Rocketman who wrote (4345)	3/17/1998 5:10:00 AM
From: Joseph wang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9719

Regarding your low-salt diet may not be healthiest article... I have essential hypertension (and I'm only in my 20's). My BP is 160/106 (untreated/no medication) From everything that I've learned, doctors don't know much about blood pressure and health...most of it is guess work. All the physiological mechanisms don't seem to reveal much when applied. Most people who have high blood pressure have primary or essential HTN (idiopathic). The word "idiopathic" is used alot. The medical word "idiopathic" simply means "unknown origin" and that describes most of the common systemic diseases. Only a small percentage of the population of sick people actually have secondary disease (that is a disease caused by a known factor---which can be another disease, a drug or food, allergies, etc.) But I must admit, even though my HTN is not the result of a high salt diet, my blood pressure is lower when I do maintain a salt intake of under 1000mg/day for about a 1 month period (RDI=2500mg/day). Of course, taking Ca++ channel blockers lower my BP more....but dietary restriction does help. Most Americans have a horrible diet and is not seen in any other country in the world (except for maybe some parts of Europe where gluttony is common family practice)!!! The average American consumes about 6 Grams NaCl/Day. That is far more than needed for the body. As long as kidney function is intact, you're okay. The problem is, alot of old people have bad kidney function, so alot of salt is retained which raises blood pressure which in turn damages the kidneys even more. Bad kidneys, a high cholesterol diet, and lots of occluded arteries increases blood pressure significantly. Salt is a tasty thing....and lots of it is not beneficial. From a public health standpoint, a high salt diet will kill you when you're body can't get rid of it....this seems to happen quite a bit to old people who just can't kick the habit of gorging themselves (I've seen this quite frequently at Denny's), cuz they've been eating like that all their lives. One day, it just seems to catch up to you...that's partially why health care is so damn expensive in this country (I'm not complaining though!). As for my HTN, its "primary", "essential", "idiopathic"....those damn researchers better get crackin' and find out what's up. In the meantime I have to take these damn drugs everyday. -JW The moral of my story is, high salt diet poorly correlates with heart disease, CHF/CHD, HTN, etc. but a low salt diet is helpful/good in some cases, whereas a high salt diet is never good for you and a small percentage of the time, a high salt diet is actually bad for you. sorry to be off topic but I had to get my 50cents in there.