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Even if you have a light hand with the salt shaker, you probably get lots of sodium in processed or restaurant meals. But sodium can contribute to high blood pressure, and increases the risk for heart disease and failure, stroke, and kidney disease. So how many of us are limiting our sodium intake to recommended levels—which scientists say could reduce new cases of coronary heart disease by 60-to-120 thousand per year.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2005/2006, the most recent years available. Nearly 4,000 adults over 20-years-old completed a physical, had their blood pressure taken and answered a survey of what they’d eaten over the past 24. This food survey was taken again about a week later.
According to the data, less than 10 percent of adults are limiting their sodium to recommended levels. The study appears in the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. [J. Peralez Gunn et al., http://bit.ly/CDCSalt]
The researchers suggest that food manufacturers reduce the sodium in processed foods. And that consumers modify their eating habits—which might mean doing more cooking at home, where you have control of the salt.
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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7 Comments
Add Comment'researches suggests'? this should be mandatory! if you reduce salt in foods by 30%, no one will notice. Later on, reduce it further. As I have hi blood pressure, I kept lowering the salt intake: zero at home, and the minimum possible when dining outside-not always feasible though because restaurateurs and cookie manufacturers are not ' equipped' to do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe cannot lower our sodium intake, since we all eat out more than we eat at home, until the food manufacturers and public cooks do so. If all the food preparers converted over to unprecessed sea salt, like Celtic Sea Salt, then we would not have a problem with blood-pressure, heart disease, and swollen ankles, because sea salt doesn't do any of those. Celtic Sea Salt, because it has not been cleaned and has all its minerals in it, is actually healthy for you. ...The smart choice -switch over to sea salt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi Cynthia, Thanks for highlighting arguably the #1 biggest health crisis and most preventable. Couple things I'd like to add:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Salt ALWAYS increases blood pressure. The biochemistry is simple. Salt retains water. Water increases volume of blood in a fixed volume cardiovascular system. So your heart and kidneys are under more pressure than optimal.
2. Not all salt causes these problems. A google search for Himalayan rock salt (not tainted by anticaking agents or toxins from the sea) and TaoSalt (same quality but 400X higher cellular permeability) should be eye opening to most of us who only know about Iodized table salt. - @journik on twitter
The science that says salt is bad for you remains shaky. I haven't seen any convincing studies. If the salinity of the blood is constant doesn't that mean excess salt just gets excreted? Is this hand waving science like the rumor a few years ago that we had to have pH balanced food? And in this environment is a surprise that spammers Journik and JamesDavis come here and offer us "magic" salt?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't get started on that 'special' salt (Celtic, Dead Sea, Himalayan Pink, Danish Viking Smoked, Hawaiian, Organic, Velvet de Guerande by Le Tresor, etc.) nonsense. All that 'trace minerals in just the right proportions', etc. is a bunch of hogwash.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomehow when it comes to the government and its health advice, it never gets anything right, and yet it seems that we all already to jump on the no salt bandwagon. The 32,000 deaths per year supposedly saved by this salt restriction is only 3.8 of all CV deaths. Salt intake has never been an independent risk factor but in many studies show that people with certain conditions may be worse with a higher sodium intake (e.g. overweight people-who had to eat 1 1/4 tsp to increase risk by 85%), so why apply this to everyone? When I was in family practice in Arizona, I had more kids passing out in the heat because their parents restricted their salt intake than I ever had problems with too much. Never saw a case of high blood pressure than went away with avoiding salt either. As to the statement by Journik that all salt elevated blood pressure, maybe his physiology is a bit rusty, but we have these marvelous things called kidneys that remove excess salt in the vast majority or people (probably all healthy people). What we don't have is potassium which I have seen bring BP down significantly regardless of salt intake (look up sodium potassium pump sometime, and you will discover what the government and researchers are missing in this equation). The best study I have seen suggests (and this makes the most sense), 10% of people with high blood pressure have an issue with sodium (salt), so why make everyone in the USA pay for a problem that occurs in only a small number of people. Should we tell people that aren't overweight they have to eat the same amount of food as someone on a diet? Do athletes (a group which loses lots of salt per day) really want to adhere to this advice? The answer is no, a 15 year old girl who kept passing out during track practice who was salt restricted due to this inane advice proved that. All cause mortality would plummet between 42K and 99,000 and yet cardiovascular deaths (strokes and MI's) only by 15K to 32,000. So between 30,000 and 60,000 deaths are being caused by excess salt each year unrelated to CV disease? And yet what mysterious serious medical problem that will lower total deaths by a greater number than are number one killer (CV disease) isn't even given a mention. Really, this is all about thinking, the numbers don't add up and yet 80% of America gladly believes garbage studies like this. Really I don't think that the oil spill numbers were as bad as these. And if you made it this far, there is ample evidence to suggest that the micronutrients in whole salt do help sorry
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisreplace all that evil salt with blessed corn syrup and all the world's health problems will be over.
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