This chapter will look at a Blood Pressure Lowering Salt and comment on the topic of Cancer and Prevention. We hope you find this chapter and those to come interesting.

As stated by the editor of Prevention magazine (March 95), there is a salt, when used at the table and in food manufacturing that can actually lower blood pressure. The salt is a natural product from Iceland, composed of not just sodium, but also the benefical minerals, potassium and magnesium. When older people with mild to moderate hypertension were given the mineral salt for six months, the average blood-pressure reading dropped by eight points systolic and three points diastolic. This may not sound like a huge drop, but in fact is close to what we would expect to see, on average, with drugs. (British Medical Journal - August 13, 1994).

The benefit of this salt is not only hypertension prevention, but also a pleasant tasting ingredient for food manufacturing like bread, cheese, lunch meats, soups, etc.

The low-sodium salt is processed from geysir brine and ocean water in Iceland using geothermal technology and Mother Nature. The principle of the production of this Icelandic sea mineral salt is based on the fact that the composition of the ocean's minerals is proportionally similar to the composition of the minerals in the human blood or fluids, although the ocean's content of sodium chloride is much higher. Through a patented production method, the content of sodium chloride in the sea mineral salt has been decreased by about 60% and the proportion of the other minerals, including potassium and magnesium has been increased. It also contains various vital trace elements which are co-effective as co-enzymes in the human body.

Using the Icelandic sea mineral salt instead of ordinary table salt results in decreased consumption of sodium chloride (up to 60%) without disrupting the normal balance of the body.

But the best benefit of all is that this salt provides a truly fulfilling taste of regular salt.

Everone agrees cancer is a preventable disease. Its causes are largely known. Cigarettes cause cancer. Some say that foods high in fat, low in fiber and/or very high in salt can cause cancer

Cancer is the product of the 4 B's; bad habits, bad government, bad business and bad luck.

The five-year survival rate for the majority of cancers (ie. lung, colon, breast and stomach cancers) remain essentially what they were twenty years ago. America's cancer campaign has been called a medical Vietnam. To James D. Watson, the codiscoverer of the structure of DNA and one of the nation's most widely respected scientists, the campaign is simply "a bunch of s---". Part of the problem lies in the belief that a single universal cure can be found.

Some suggest that prevention, rather than cure, is the best hope for most chronic ailments like cancer. Although antibiotics and vaccines were developed against diseases like cholera and tuberculosis and saved millions of lives, in the long run these diseases were conquered by more mundane measures. Measures like improved nutrition and sanitation, shorter workinng hours and generally improved standards of living.

New ideas and concepts for cancer prevention have been gaining wider acceptance, especially in the areas related to diet, exercise and functional foods. Functional foods is a whole new segment that the food industry is exploring, with new and improved products coming to the mainstream retail environments. Functional foods have been called everything from pharm-foods, designer foods, vitamin fortified foods, etc. (more on functional foods in the next chapter).