cmcole
10-18-2006, 09:02 AM
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061018.wxsalt17/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home
Exactly how bad is salt?
UNNATI GANDHI
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
The words being hurled are strong: Toxic. Poison. Forgotten killer. Public Enemy No. 1.
They are fierce battle cries against salt — and they are getting louder and stronger.
The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, one of the not-for-profit movers and shakers in the growing anti-salt movement, says as many as 15,000 Canadians a year are dying prematurely because of “excessive sodium consumption.”
Similarly staggering numbers in the United States prompted the American Medical Association to recommend this summer that the Food and Drug Administration strip salt of its “generally recognized as safe” status and strongly regulate it as a food additive, a category that includes food dyes and monosodium glutamate (MSG).
One of Canada's anti-salt activists, Bill Jeffrey of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest in Ottawa, said that “if 15,000 Canadians are dying prematurely every year because they're consuming too much salt, I don't think there's any pejorative word strong enough to describe it.”
In fact, one of the country's leading experts in hypertension has gone so far as to say that if salt were introduced as a new substance today, it would not be deemed safe for human consumption.
Health Canada's dietary guidelines say that the average adult should eat less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day, but the limit could be as low as 1,300 for people with high blood pressure, those at higher risk for high blood pressure such as blacks and those over 50. Yet on average, Canadians eat more than 3,500 milligrams of sodium a day, with less than 10 per cent of it added at the table. (By weight, salt is composed of 40-per-cent sodium and 60-per-cent chloride. So a teaspoon of table salt contains 2,300 milligrams of sodium.) There is disagreement, however, between the warring sides. The debate isn't so much over the link between salt and blood pressure, but rather to what degree they are linked — and whether other factors may play a more significant role in high blood pressure. There simply isn't enough science that links high-salt diets directly to heart attacks and strokes to call for a blanket recommendation for the general population.
“There is a huge amount of literature indicating that excess sodium is killing and disabling huge numbers of people worldwide,” he said, adding that humans need “almost no salt” to survive, because all the salt we need is found naturally in food before it's processed.
In fact, he continued, Canadians and Americans are probably consuming 10 times as much salt as is necessary without knowing it because most of the salt in processed foods cannot be tasted. People could reduce their sodium intake by 50 per cent and get used to it “within weeks.”
The salt industry argues this would compromise taste. But Dr. Havas says it has more to do with profits.
Exactly how bad is salt?
UNNATI GANDHI
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
The words being hurled are strong: Toxic. Poison. Forgotten killer. Public Enemy No. 1.
They are fierce battle cries against salt — and they are getting louder and stronger.
The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, one of the not-for-profit movers and shakers in the growing anti-salt movement, says as many as 15,000 Canadians a year are dying prematurely because of “excessive sodium consumption.”
Similarly staggering numbers in the United States prompted the American Medical Association to recommend this summer that the Food and Drug Administration strip salt of its “generally recognized as safe” status and strongly regulate it as a food additive, a category that includes food dyes and monosodium glutamate (MSG).
One of Canada's anti-salt activists, Bill Jeffrey of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest in Ottawa, said that “if 15,000 Canadians are dying prematurely every year because they're consuming too much salt, I don't think there's any pejorative word strong enough to describe it.”
In fact, one of the country's leading experts in hypertension has gone so far as to say that if salt were introduced as a new substance today, it would not be deemed safe for human consumption.
Health Canada's dietary guidelines say that the average adult should eat less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day, but the limit could be as low as 1,300 for people with high blood pressure, those at higher risk for high blood pressure such as blacks and those over 50. Yet on average, Canadians eat more than 3,500 milligrams of sodium a day, with less than 10 per cent of it added at the table. (By weight, salt is composed of 40-per-cent sodium and 60-per-cent chloride. So a teaspoon of table salt contains 2,300 milligrams of sodium.) There is disagreement, however, between the warring sides. The debate isn't so much over the link between salt and blood pressure, but rather to what degree they are linked — and whether other factors may play a more significant role in high blood pressure. There simply isn't enough science that links high-salt diets directly to heart attacks and strokes to call for a blanket recommendation for the general population.
“There is a huge amount of literature indicating that excess sodium is killing and disabling huge numbers of people worldwide,” he said, adding that humans need “almost no salt” to survive, because all the salt we need is found naturally in food before it's processed.
In fact, he continued, Canadians and Americans are probably consuming 10 times as much salt as is necessary without knowing it because most of the salt in processed foods cannot be tasted. People could reduce their sodium intake by 50 per cent and get used to it “within weeks.”
The salt industry argues this would compromise taste. But Dr. Havas says it has more to do with profits.