> Could ASD be helped by reducing salt? or increasing salt?
Personal story here (N=1, not claiming anything other than that). My dad is clearly ASD, and has battled high blood pressure for as long as I can remember. He's now suffering the consequences of 40 years of absolute salt avoidance. 1) I never saw and reduction in the ASD over the past 40 years, 2) lack of salt never changed his blood pressure, and 3) now he's suffering other heath effects, but won't listen to me and only wants to do more of the same.
Avoiding table salt thoroughly could potentially lead to iodine deficiency. It was somewhat common in the past so most table salt over the past century has had iodine added to it to avoid this, but it's cropping back up a bit as people avoid salt or prefer to use "natural rock salts" common in fine cuisine, which are not reinforced with iodine.
And yet, levels have been measurably going down, and Europeans are already fairly deficient since they don't have as many iodine supplementation programs:
My prediction: in fifty years, "low-salt" will have gone the way of "low-fat." Too late for millions of people whose health was injured and lives shortened by these terrible fads.
I'm sure you are responding with good intentions, that some 'healthy' fats are needed in a healthy diet.
The demonization of fat is wrong.
But Also
Eating 5lbs of Ribs every day and weighing 300 lbs is not healthy.
Same with salt.
The 'healthy' amount of salt is a U curve. You can have too little, and too much.
It's just in the typical American diet, there is so much Fat and so much Salt, that most people area already at the extreme of the U curve and should probably start cutting back.
> Eating 5lbs of Ribs every day and weighing 300 lbs is not healthy.
If you started at normal weight and ate 5lbs of ribs (or, till satiety) every day, with as much butter as you'd like, but ZERO carbs or artificial sweeteners, you'd never gain weight, much less get to 300 lbs. That's my point.
But don't believe me - this experiment has been done many times.
You can eat vegetables until satiety and also not gain weight.
Banting seems to be about non-processed whole foods. So guess I'm doing that.
My point was more, there is a group that goes 'zero carb' and eat really unhealthily. They take it as a license to pile on the ribs. Not that 'zero carb' by itself is unhealthy.
You'll probably say cholesterol is also ok. But plaque buildup does lead to hearth attack's.
"Unfortunately, emerging research shows that a ketogenic diet actually increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. In a young, fit population of CrossFit athletes, following a keto diet for 12 weeks led to an average weight loss of 6 pounds but increased “bad cholesterol” (LDL-C) by a whopping 35%.
Typically, you would expect to see LDL-C levels drop when you lose weight. LDL-C has long been associated with cardiovascular risk because it forms arterial plaques (a cholesterol build-up in the inner lining of arteries), and emerging research that followed people for 12 years has now directly linked long-term ketogenic"
Personal story here (N=1, not claiming anything other than that). My dad is clearly ASD, and has battled high blood pressure for as long as I can remember. He's now suffering the consequences of 40 years of absolute salt avoidance. 1) I never saw and reduction in the ASD over the past 40 years, 2) lack of salt never changed his blood pressure, and 3) now he's suffering other heath effects, but won't listen to me and only wants to do more of the same.