When the Institute of Medicine recommended broad, draconian regulation of salt last year, I pushed back against the idea, one might say, obsessively. Now, via Marion Nestle, comes a new paper in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition arguing that the current level of sodium intake is not a problem for the population. The article comes with an accompanying editorial titled “Science trumps politics: urinary sodium data challenge US dietary sodium guideline” that closes with this appeal:
The analyses of extensive measurements of 24-h UNaV, which these 2 reports have collected from the medical literature over the past 5 decades, are compelling. They provide plausible, scientific evidence of a “normal” range of dietary sodium intake in humans that is consistent with our understanding of the established physiology of sodium regulation in humans. This scientific evidence, not political expediency, should be the foundation of future government policies, thus respecting the known and unknown scientific complexities surrounding sodium’s role in health and disease. Guidance for sodium intake should target specific populations for whom a lower sodium intake is possibly beneficial. Such an approach would avoid broad proscriptive guidelines for the general population for whom the safety and efficacy are not yet defined. An appropriate next step is not to lower the sodium guideline further.
You can find my previous coverage of salt regulation here, here, here, here, here, and here.
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Wednesday ~ May 4th, 2011 at 10:00 am
smithy
The target population for which lower sodium would be beneficial is almost everyone. I realize this is an expensive regulation to put in place so its a real trade-off economically, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t save the economy money. I know from looking at insurance information on populations that high blood pressure is the biggest risk factor for death. Its worse than smoking, obesity or high cholesterol. People with high blood pressure tend to die in their 50s. (The data shows there aren’t hardly any people in their 80s who had high blood pressure when they we were 50). China recently lowered the allowable sodium content in foods and showed a dramatic decrease in cardiac events. China! I think you need to reconsider.