[risto1]

Salt and dietary cholesterol never went from definitely bad to mostly irrelevant. It's still definitely bad. I'm guessing what you had read are magazine articles and 'nutritionists' coming up with their own theories.

If you look at actual recommendations from real organizations from real registered dietitians, the advice has largely not changed:

- Don't eat processed crap

- Eat mostly plants

- Eat lean meats and try to eat more beans and legumes as a protein source

- Keep your overall fat intake low

- Calcium from low-fat dairy, a milk substitute like almond milk, or plant sources of calcium

- Reduce added salt as much as possible

- Avoid saturated fat

- Avoid dietary cholesterol

- Avoid refined carbs

- Avoid added sugars and oils

And this advice is consistent across health organizations and across different countries. It's scary how much people get all their information from shitty sources and then spread the misinformation everywhere..

Sources:

https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-...

https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/executi...

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutriti...

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...

http://www.mangerbouger.fr/pro/sante/alimentation-19/determi...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_national_nutrition_s...

http://www.fao.org/3/a-as686o.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

http://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-dietary-guidelin...

http://www.fao.org/docrep/pdf/010/ai800e/ai800e00.pdf

http://apps.searo.who.int/PDS_DOCS/B4818.pdf

[barry-cotter]

Cholesterol

Intake of saturated and trans unsaturated fatty acids and risk of all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4532752/

"does not clearly support cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats."

Salt

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/tl-tls080818...

The Lancet: Sodium reduction programmes may only be appropriate for communities with very high salt intake

A new study shows that for the vast majority of communities, sodium consumption is not associated with an increase in health risks except for those whose average consumption exceeds 5g/day (equivalent to 12.5g of salt, or 2½ teaspoons). Communities with high average levels of sodium intake (above 5g/day) were mostly seen in China, with only about 15% of communities outside China exceeding this level of consumption.

WHO guidelines recommend a global approach to reducing sodium intake in all populations to below 2g/day, but this has not been achieved in any country. The authors say that sodium reduction strategies should instead target communities with high average levels of sodium consumption (above 5g/day).

https://secure.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/action/getSharedSiteSe...

[risto1]

You can't rely on single studies to come up with conclusions, if you want to play that game you can literally prove or disprove anything you want to.

The whole picture can and does look very different than any single study. Studies vary a lot in quality, and there are tricks that are done to fudge with the conclusions. See:

https://www.youtube.com/user/NutritionFactsOrg

He very clearly points out exactly how people screw with the data on a large number of studies. That's why I listed all those sources from credible organizations from conclusions drawn by actual dietitians, not me or you or joe 'nutritionist' randomly trying to come up with our own conclusions.

Also, any reasonably intelligent random person can attack any studies pretty easily and make it look credible. Example: The first one is a meta-analysis of observational studies, one of the weakest forms of evidence, and other meta-analyses came up with the exact opposite conclusion. The second one's conclusion is obviously flawed, since salt without a shadow of a doubt increases blood pressure, so salt intake definitely does matter for older populations which almost always have a compromised cardiovascular system, so it definitely matters to them. The third isn't really saying anything except that they aren't successful at reducing salt consumption.

I'd rather trust experts to do their work, but you can do what you want it's your health. I bought all this crap for a few years until I suffered health problems from eating tons of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat with theoretical benefits. I could literally see my intake of saturated fat and cholesterol turning my blood cholesterol (total and LDL) and triglycerides on and off like a light switch. I did this several times. It was SO cut and dry. I kept all other variables the same. And I've always eaten tons of really health foods, a ton of plants, I just bought into the hype that butter and eggs are suddenly 'healthy', according to magazines and 'nutritionists'. Even blood work doesn't stop some people -- I remember reading a HN post of someone who started eating tons of eggs and had absurdly high levels of blood cholesterol, but his conclusion was that it's 'not a concern' and he 'feels fine' -- The doubt that was introduced already got to him and he just doesn't care anymore.

Cigarette companies played this exact same game for years btw, introducing doubt as to whether cigarettes caused cancer and lung disease. All you have to do is introduce doubt. It doesn't even have to be a strong argument towards experts, as in experts don't think there is any doubt. It's targeted towards just the lay person who doesn't understand the science