Salt intake: the new public health hot topic shaking onto the scene

A recent New England Journal of Medicine article discusses reducing salt intake and its benefit to society. A national effort to reduce salt intake by 3 g (1200 mg of sodium) per day could reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease by 60,000-120,000, stroke by 32,000-66,000, and heart attacks by 54,000-99,000. Wow! The number of deaths annually due to these diseases could decrease by up to 90,000. Wow! And... for those number-crunchers, this could save the country $10-24 billion annually. Yes, annually.

And: "Even if the intervention reduced salt intake by just 1 g per day, the benefits would still be substantial and would warrant implementation." Now that's saying something.

The authors say there are 2 approaches to reducing salt intake:

1. The individual approach involves individual consumers to reduce their daily intake through voluntary dietary decisions. However, the authors say, this method has been attempted and does not work.
2. The public health approach involves getting manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt in processed foods.

New York City has started an initiative to get restaurants to reduce the amount of salt in food served to New Yorkers - a 25% reduction over 5 years has been proposed. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is about to release a report about salt intake. And the FDA is considering
changing the designation of salt to a category that would give consumers more information. [All from this New York Times article.]

One editorial article from the New York Times mentions that most salt in people's diets comes from processed foods, not from adding salt individually. So the processed foods are what we should be targeting - restaurants and food manufacturers. Let the battle begin!

This post comes in honor of World Salt Awareness Week, according to CDC. (There's a week/month for everything, eh?) Check out this fact sheet about salt and salt intake.

And check out this previous post by Lisa for more about reducing sodium levels.

Are you too salty?

After attending the CSTE annual conference and hearing a plenary on reducing sodium levels in our foods, it got me thinking... how much sodium is actually in my diet? I think I eat relatively normal foods with the occasional processed foods. I always choose the low-sodium or sodium-free soups from the grocery store but is that enough of an effort?

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal in April, nearly 70% of the US population is hypertensive and should follow a stricter guideline of 1,500 mgs a day. You can cut your risk of hypertension by lowering your salt intake early on in life. So, why is it so difficult for Americans to regulate their sodium levels? Because Americans eat enormous amounts of processed foods and restaurant meals. We don't cook at home anymore as a nation (and in fact, neither do I) and this is resulting in higher blood pressures and expanding waist lines.

What suprised me about the article is that even raw chicken is enhanced with salt water to make it plumper and heavier ($$ cha ching!) AND that bakery goods and breakfast bars have higher sodium levels than you would expect.

"Even low-sodium labels have different meanings: "Sodium free" means less than 5 mg per serving; "very low" has less than 35 mg; "low" is less than 140. "Reduced sodium" just means that it's down 25% from what an earlier formulation was -- but could still be high in sodium, just like "No added salt" doesn't mean salt free."

What to do? You can ask restaurants to use less salt when you order, experiment with natural herbs and spices, use half the salt the recipe calls for and just get used to consuming less salt. Actually, those are all REALLY EASY things to do.

"It may take a while to get accustomed to less salt, but once your tastes adjust, you may not want to go back. Commissioner Frieden likens reducing salt to switching from whole milk to skim milk. "If you go back, whole milk tastes like heavy cream," he says."

I'm in favor for people taking ownership of their diet. Not enough people are 'active eaters' and really consider what they are eating before they buy or eat it. People with diabetes have had to monitor their diets for years. But I argue (and the article does too) that we ALL need to monitor our intake of sodium, sugar and other minerals and vitamins. If our nation is going to collectively reduce our belt size, we need to be mindful of what we put in our mouths. Perhaps reducing salt is the first step to putting the consumer back in control of their diets.