“I tell them you can take my blood pressure right now, or we can have a run around the block, and I guarantee you I’m in better shape than you,” said Meagher, 68, who now lives in Westport, Mass. “I’m fit, at least for my age, and I use salt every day in volume. Hasn’t done me a blind bit of harm, which is the way we put it from where I come from.”

Recent research quantifies Meagher’s experience. In 2011, half a dozen medical studies showed the health benefits of salt or revealed the significant risks of low-sodium diets — providing vindication for this essential nutrient and the people, like Meagher, who love it.

“The vindication of salt is probably the biggest health and nutrition story of the last year,” says Lori Roman, president of the Salt Institute. “Everyone knows salt tastes good, but the latest research published in leading medical journals confirms that salt is good for you, too. The medical studies underline what we have been saying for years: science is on salt’s side.”

The new data raises questions about the federal government’s effort to put Americans on a low-salt diet. The Food and Drug Administration is inviting online public comments about ways to reduce sodium consumption. In the past, such invitations have foreshadowed the rollout of new regulations.

Iodized salt is table salt mixed with very small amounts of iodine. The ingestion of iodide prevents iodine deficiency. Worldwide, iodine deficiency affects about two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Lack of iodine in your diet can also cause thyroid gland problems, including endemic goiter, and hypothyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid does not produce enough hormone.

Iodine is a micronutrient that is naturally present in the food supply in many regions. However, where natural levels of iodine in the soil are low and the iodine is not taken up by vegetables, iodine added to salt provides the small but essential amount needed by humans. According to Dr. Philip G. Young, author of “Thyroid Guardian of Health.” Iodized salt is an important component to the American diet because much of the soil in the United States is deficient in iodine.

The six peer-reviewed medical studies documented:

Type 1 Diabetes risk: In a study of patients with type 1 diabetes, low sodium intake was associated with renal disease and premature death.

Type 2 Diabetes risk: In an Australian study of type 2 diabetes patients, lower sodium was associated with increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

No benefit to salt reduction: A study published in the American Journal of Hypertension showed eating less salt will not prevent heart attacks, strokes or early death. On the contrary, low-sodium diets increase the likelihood of premature death.

Risk of death: A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that lower salt intakes resulted in higher death rates.

Other negative effects of low-salt intakes: An analysis published in the American Journal of Hypertension showed individuals placed on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines-recommended salt levels experienced significant increases in cholesterol and other risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Risk with current U.S. Dietary Guidelines: An analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that people who ate salt at the levels recommended by the U.S. government were at greater risk of cardiovascular events.

The research has prompted new scrutiny of the government’s attempts to put all Americans on a low-salt diet. Scientific American reviewed medical studies over several decades and concluded in a headline: “It’s time to end the war on salt.” The respected magazine also said, “The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science.”

Meagher remembers when the federal government told him eggs could be bad for his health. He ignored that advice, too.

“I would rather the federal government stay well away from my kitchen altogether,” Meagher says. “I will continue to eat my boiled eggs from an egg cup, with an egg spoon, and with plenty of salt.”

The post Health Story of the Year: Salt Vindicated first appeared on The How Do Gardener.

“We were always taught that iodized salt is good for you,” says Martin. “If you don’t get your iodine from salt, where will you get it?”

Morton Salt began adding iodine to table salt in 1924, and other U.S. salt companies quickly followed suit. Consequently, iodine deficiency – the leading worldwide cause of childhood brain damage – became rare in the U.S. and many other Western countries.

But an alarming new medical study shows 70 percent of teenage girls in Great Britain are iodine deficient, and as many as 100,000 British babies are born every year with brain damage that could have been prevented if their mothers used iodized salt.

In light of this and other studies, the Salt Institute has expressed concern that sodium-restricted diets may reduce consumption of iodized table salt, increasing the risk of an entirely preventable major health problem — iodine deficiency. The benefits of iodized salt are sometimes missed because it is one of the most overlooked brain foods ever developed.

“It may be a stretch to say iodized table salt put man on the moon, but it has helped provide the intellectual development needed for so many of our technological breakthroughs,” says Mort Satin, vice president of science and research at the Salt Institute, an authoritative source on salt. “Fortifying table salt with iodine was one of the greatest public health triumphs of the 20th century.”

The British study, published June 2 in the journal Lancet, has prompted some health experts to call for mandatory iodization of salt in Great Britain. At the same time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other federal agencies continue to push for dramatic reductions of salt consumption.

Satin — who was responsible for the first commercial supplementation of bread with folic acid, reducing the risk of neural tube defects in babies — explains that iodine is especially critical in the development of the fetal brain.

“Thousands of babies are born with brain damage that could have been avoided with just a few pinches of iodized salt,” said Satin. “In light of this tragedy, it’s nothing short of reckless for governments to be removing salt shakers from school lunchrooms. But that’s exactly what we’re seeing.”

The Salt Institute says about 70 percent of all table salt in the United States is now fortified with iodine, but salt used in processed food is rarely iodized and many sea salts also lack iodine. Thanks to iodized table salt, goiter, an enlargement of the thyroid gland caused by iodine deficiency, has dramatically decreased in the U.S. since 1924, as has childhood brain damage.

Still, the World Health Organization says iodine deficiency remains the world’s most significant and preventable cause of mental disability, despite the availability of a “spectacularly simple, universally effective, wildly attractive and incredibly cheap technical weapon … iodized salt,”

Health experts estimate that even a moderate deficiency of iodine can lower intelligence by 10 to 15 IQ points. Fortunately, a powerful protector of brainpower is within easy reach.

That’s why Martin tells her friends: “Make sure your children use iodized salt. It doesn’t take a lot to help their brains.”

The post Iodized Salt and the Looming Iodine Deficiency Crisis first appeared on The How Do Gardener.