David Thomas wrote:

"George E. Cawthon" wrote:

Thanks for the article, and thanks for the conversions.
Grains per gallon has absolutely no meaning to me than
acre-feet per hour has to most people. Considering that a
can of Cambells soup may have nearly 900 mg of salt, the
numbers you show for salt addition of softened water are
indeed miniscule.

Miniscule, perhaps George, but this source of sodium should still be
made aware to a patient on a sodium restricted diet.

I agree, but RB's paper indicated about 76 mg/l of sodium
for moderately hard water. Many of those patients would eat
a can of soup that had ten times as much sodium and never
give it a thought. Much like the person with a hole in his
throat still smoking cigaretts. Besides, how many people
drink a two liters of water a day?

I'm not convinced that following the maximum recommendation
of salt will have much beneficial effect, especially
compared to the potential bad side effect of low sodium.




RB wrote:

I'll throw my two cents in here. These terms "hard" and "soft" are
quite subjective. The real issue is modifying water so that it is
useable. I'm attaching a short discussion I put together almost 10
years ago when I was in a debate with my parents' physician about the
damage they were doing to themselves by using a water softener. "Adding
so much sodium to their daily intake" was his claim. I was surprised he
didn't remember much chemistry.

RB

RB, I'm sorry but I never saw your original post and the attachment
link in this response post does not exist for my Google newsgroup
browser.

I'm not at all surprised the doctor was rusty on basic chemistry. He's
been dealing with higher order biological reactions for so long, it's
like the physicist who has to use a calculator to find the sum of two
plus two. His mind is just operating on a different level. ;-)

Actually you give too much credence to doctor's original
knowledge of basic chemistry. Many never understood it; but
you are right most forgot it because it (especially physical
chem) really has little to do with what they do.