nutrition

Sandy at Junkfood Science has a new post laying out the much-ignored evidence that a low-salt diet is helpful only for the 1/3 of the population whose blood pressure is salt-sensitive. There is apparently some evidence that in another 1/4 of the population a low-salt diet raises blood pressure. But what I had never heard that intrigued me is that a low salt diet may increase insulin resistance. If you put that together with the argument that insulin resistance causes weight gain because it favors blood glucose going into fat cells, then it may be that the goverment recommendations that everyone follow a low salt diet are one of the causes of the increase in obesity (if it exists at all). Update: a great post on why the American Diabetes Association gives such bad information is up at Diabetes Update.

Only marginally related, Kate Harding has a wonderful post on The Fantasy of Being Thin and the New Republic has an article on the evidence that overweight people live longer. I struggled years ago to get out of feeling I was supposed to deprive myself so I enjoy seeing it become a movement.