Another article, More scientists doubt salt is as bad for you as the government says, in the respectable Washington Post, arguing that the salt dietary guidelines in vogue for the last generation were not based on strong science. The problem here is that bureaucratic organizations are making decisions about the health of hundreds of millions on correlational science. The incentives are skewed, and the decisions are not without cost. In the piece the journalist reports on studies which suggest that excessively low sodium content might be associated with health problems, but perhaps more important than that is that most people love salty food. Withholding salt is another way to diminish the simple pleasures of life from the populace at large.

An interesting twist on this public health issue is that it turns out that some of the original scholars argued against salt on “Paleo” grounds. That is, the small-scale and Pleistocene societies likely had very low salt intake, suggesting we were not well adapted for it. But the fact that until recently the salt guidelines for African Americans and those over 50 were more stringent implies that even then there are individual differences. Populations likely vary on “optimal” salt (or fat or sugar) intake.