| What follows is a slightly modified version of an | | | | than normal (e.g. pregnant women). |
| article I wrote for the monthly glossy magazine | | | | People whose blood vessel walls have been |
| of Mensa, the high IQ society, of which I am a | | | | weakened by 'slimming' - i.e. eating insufficient |
| member. It was published in the December 2004 | | | | food. |
| issue. Four months later, the April 2005 issue | | | | Inactivity does not cause obesity. Obesity causes |
| contained a letter from Joyce Barnard, who has | | | | inactivity. |
| given permission for her name to be used here. | | | | In 2001 I wrote to MPs, to medical people, to |
| She wrote that by following the advice I had | | | | journalists, to nutritionists and others, explaining |
| given her a few years earlier - i.e. that to lower | | | | that salt sensitivity is what causes obesity, and |
| her high blood pressure and lose weight she | | | | urging that the facts be made known, particularly |
| simply needed to eat less sodium - she had lost 5 | | | | to steroid victims. The powerful and influential |
| stones in weight (70 pounds) in a year! - All she | | | | people to whom I wrote have taken no action to |
| did was stop sprinkling salt onto her meals and | | | | give publicity to the life-saving message. The public |
| use LoSalt instead of ordinary salt when cooking. | | | | is not being told the truth about weight gain and |
| Many years ago I gained a great deal of weight | | | | weight loss. The best, the healthiest, the safest |
| because of taking HRT prescribed by my GPs, | | | | way to lose weight is to concentrate on eating |
| mainly on the advice of an endocrinologist. - I did | | | | less salt (and more potassium). |
| not realise at the time that the weight gain was | | | | An Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Oxford*, |
| because of the medication. | | | | wrote back to me in August 2001 that I was |
| I became desperately ill and exhausted and had | | | | right about steroids causing weight gain because |
| very high blood pressure for which I took | | | | of salt and water retention and that weight can |
| Atenolol, a beta-blocker. I was so fat I could | | | | be lost by eating less salt or by taking diuretics. |
| barely walk. Yet I was not overeating. My feet, | | | | Sadly he seems to be the only medic who knows |
| hands and breasts were exquisitely painful and | | | | this! - A book on salt, written by experts on |
| very red and swollen. I was unable to use my | | | | hypertension and brought out in a blaze of |
| hands for many tasks. I needed a larger size in | | | | publicity a few years ago makes no mention of |
| shoes. My face and neck became beetroot red | | | | steroid victims and specifically states, among |
| and very swollen. I developed acne and eczema. I | | | | other errors, that HRT does not cause a salt |
| suffered from breathlessness. | | | | problem. |
| Having never sprinkled salt on my food in my life, | | | | A person who gains weight has a higher calorie |
| and never used it in cooking, in 1997 I became | | | | requirement. There are two reasons for this. |
| aware that there was a lot of salt in bread and | | | | Having to carry a greater mass around and |
| cheese and breakfast cereals. Because of the | | | | service a more massive body uses more calories. |
| connection between hypertension and salt intake I | | | | And having a bigger surface area means greater |
| altered my eating to reduce, and eventually to | | | | heat loss, since heat lost is proportional to surface |
| exclude, all avoidable sodium. This lowered my | | | | area. - A greater calorie requirement results in |
| blood pressure and I no longer needed to take | | | | greater appetite/hunger, so, really, overweight |
| Atenolol. | | | | people need to eat more than people of normal |
| More spectacularly, and very unexpectedly to me, | | | | weight. If the overweight eat insufficient calories |
| eating less salt reduced my weight by 51 pounds! | | | | (i.e. if they 'diet') they may lose weight, but it is at |
| - This was nothing to do with calories, fat or | | | | the cost of being hungry. There has never been |
| sugar. - The weight I lost was clearly water, | | | | the slightest evidence that the practice of fewer |
| which I worked out was held in my body by the | | | | calories in and more calories out by way of |
| salt - held in my veins, which had become | | | | exercise reduces obesity! - It is often confidently |
| massively distended and painful since I had | | | | stated that fat will be lost by doing this. - Sadly, |
| embarked on the HRT. | | | | what is more often lost is lean tissue, usually an |
| I worked out that it was the oestrogen that had | | | | irreversible adverse effect. |
| caused the sodium and water retention and this | | | | The result of the misunderstanding of the cause |
| was confirmed when I looked in the British | | | | of obesity is the well-known fact that over 95% |
| National Formulary for the side-effects of | | | | of dieters actually gain weight in the long term! - |
| oestrogen. I then realised that oestrogen was a | | | | They cannot be expected to go hungry all the |
| steroid, though it is not normally thought of in that | | | | time. - Nor would staying hungry all the time |
| category, and that the sodium and water | | | | benefit them. - With insufficient calories for the |
| retention came about because certain steroids | | | | body's needs, the body feeds on itself. - The skin |
| and certain other prescribed drugs relax/weaken | | | | becomes thinner; the bones become less dense; |
| the walls of the blood vessels so that they take | | | | there is some hair loss, etc. |
| in excess salt and the water which accompanies | | | | Contrast this with the right way to lose weight - |
| it. I realised that I was a 'steroid victim'. | | | | by eating less sodium. - Eating less sodium |
| For many years I have been providing a free | | | | releases some of the excess sodium and water |
| telephone helpline for people in pain in my area | | | | held in the blood stream. This lowers the blood |
| and for the last five years have been advising all | | | | pressure and, significantly, lowers the weight. - |
| callers to reduce their salt intake, particularly when | | | | Weighing less results in a lower calorie requirement |
| they were obese. Their weight loss, too, has been | | | | so very gradually less food is eaten and this |
| dramatic and swift. One Mensa member whom I | | | | becomes a virtuous circle because less food |
| helped lost about a stone in a month just by | | | | eaten results in lower sodium intake. |
| eating less salt. Her dog, too, lost weight when | | | | In societies in which no salt is eaten (what some |
| she stopped salting his food! | | | | might describe as undeveloped or uncivilised |
| I firmly believe that the massive rise in the | | | | societies) there is no obesity and no hypertension. |
| incidence of obesity, especially child obesity, is due | | | | The cavemen and women who were our |
| to the prevalence of salt in modern diets, mainly | | | | ancestors lived for millennia without added salt. |
| from manufactured foods, and that calorie | | | | Our bodies evolved on a low sodium and high |
| counting and advice about reducing fat and sugar | | | | potassium intake. The modern diet has reversed |
| intake and increasing exercise are | | | | this to high sodium and low potassium. The intake |
| counter-productive. | | | | of salt has massively increased in recent years - |
| But salt causes obesity only in vulnerable people, | | | | as has the incidence of obesity. |
| i.e. | | | | I submit that the universal 'slimming' advice - to |
| People whose veins are weak because of | | | | eat fewer calories/less fat/sugar - is a major |
| immaturity (babies, children), | | | | cause of obesity. - All that is necessary to lose |
| People whose veins are weak because of steroids | | | | weight is to eat less salt/sodium. This is a |
| or HRT or amitriptyline or certain other prescribed | | | | drug-free, cost-free course of action. There are |
| drugs, too readily prescribed, often in very high | | | | no hunger pangs and no adverse side-effects. It |
| dose, | | | | requires no visits to the doctor or to the gym |
| People whose natural oestrogen levels are higher | | | | and it WILL work. |