Wednesday 25 November 2009

Health scare story du jour

From The Daily Express: HEALTH SCARE: SALT KILLS 40,000 A YEAR

Are they seriously trying to say that nearly one-in-ten deaths in the UK is caused by salt?

If you go to the 'research' itself, over at The British Medical Journal, it says "Most adult populations around the world have average daily salt intakes higher than 6 g, and for many in eastern Europe and Asia higher than 12 g. International recommendations suggest that average population salt intake should be less than 5-6 g per day. "

In which case people in eastern Europe or Asia should be dropping like flies, right?

13 comments:

Pogo said...

Have none of these cunts ever heard of "homeostasis"...?

Pavlov's Cat said...

Is this 1 in 10 of the 9 that are left after the 1 in 10 killed by smoking?
(Where even just looking at a cigarette is seen as a contributary factor)

It's funny how these things always seem to work out to 1 in 10 never 1 in 11 or 1 in 9 or even 1 in 17

If you were of a suspicious mind you might think the data was being manipulated to present the outcome required.

But surely that would never happen

Mark Wadsworth said...

P, obviously not.

PC, the proper figure would be one-in-twelve or something but I couldn't be bothered looking it up. Some claim that all smokers die of smoking, plus all the second-, third-, etc-hand smoking related deaths, so that must be about 40% of all deaths. If you add together all these attributed causes you'd get to something like two or three hundred per cent, no doubt.

View from the Solent said...

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/06/traffic-tickets-for-salt-does-healthy.html

Says it all.

dearieme said...

And also
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2006/12/pour-salt-on-it.html

James Higham said...

Sicily also has a high salt intake but they're problem is needing glasses.

JuliaM said...

Well, I'm taking ALL government advice with a big pinch of salt...

AntiCitizenOne said...

JuliaM,

Considering the amount of bullying(advice) that amount of salt could kill you.

bayard said...

Everyone eats salt. Everyone dies (eventually). Therefore everyone is killed by salt. Simple, isn't it.

Anonymous said...

Out of 10 lives lost and 0 lives saved, thus the urgency to tax and fund more, 1 killed by salt, 1 killed by sugar, 1 killed by transfat, 1 killed by global warming, 1 killed by ... and 15 killed by environmental tobacco smoke.

Dick Puddlecote said...

It's always 40,000. Every time, no matter what particular scare is being discussed. Are there seminars somewhere advising bansturbators that this is the optimal figure for fooling the public?

Pavlov's Cat said...

@Dick

I'm sure there is. Like the 1 in 10 , it's always the same numbers that crop up to 'prove' their data.

I suspect it's like Mr Heinz knew there are certain numbers that resonate more with the public than others.

banned said...

Like the Bible always seems to have a thing about 40 days and 40 nights, dunno why.