Salt's Predicament

This is a blogpost about salt -- an essential component of our food, a star ingredient of energy drinks, a culprit which contributes to the prevalence of high blood pressure, an indispensable player in the four great bodies of water that cover over 70 percent of the Earth's surface.

It is also a blogpost about an article -- one of those health articles that appears on the New York Times home page some mornings, before Obama has had a chance to sign anything or to make any speeches, and before any statements summing up the day's talks on the other side of the world have been released.

“Citing Hazard, New York Says Hold the Salt,” wrote William Neuman. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/business/11salt.html) Upon reading this headline, I immediately relayed the news to the other nutrition student in my cubicle. It was exciting news: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg challenged restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily curtail the salt (or sodium chloride) content of their products by 25% over five years as a means to reducing high blood pressure and heart disease. I pasted the link in a googledoc and went back to work. But when I had the chance to read the article carefully, a couple of misrepresentations jumped out at me -- hence the reason we need to be critical of the news, especially when it relates to making decisions, whether they concern whom to vote for or how to eat.

Misrepresentation #1: "Never been done" for Dramatic Effect

"The city's initiative, if successful in reducing salt, would amount to an uncontrolled experiment with the public's health." This quote actually appears to imply that reducing salt is dangerous, and that it has never been done. No, no, adding huge quantities of salt to foods in the first place was a dangerous experiment which has resulted in rising blood pressure and heart disease. According to the Mayo Clinic, 77% of sodium in food comes from processed foods. And guess what, before those foods hit the market, we had been consuming less for years.

Misrepresentation #2: Numbers Game

"The federal government recommends that sodium intake from salt be limited to 1,500 to 2,300 milligrams per day, with the latter figure equaling about a teaspoon." How would you interpret this statement? It seems like a recommended range. But where do these numbers come from?

The 2,300 mg/day maximum can be found in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication providing nutritional guidance to citizens and planners of food programs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the United States Department of Agriculture release this document every five years (http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/). However, there is a specification that people with hypertension, African Americans, and the middle-aged and elderly should consume less than 1,500 milligrams. Now ... those "high risk groups" already represent a very large proportion of the population.

Investigating further ... The Institute of Medicine publishes the Dietary Reference Intakes, where all quantities are broken down by age. Here we see that actually, the "adequate intake" of sodium -- or the amount that is believed to be sufficient for everyone in the population (and thus excessive for some) -- is 1,500 (not 2,300) mg/day, and only for those under fifty, with lower adequate intakes for those who are older.

Then where did the 2,300 mg/day come from? Oh ... that's the upper limit. Going above this amount is considered harmful, But the average intake in the U.S. is actually fifty percent higher. And to be exact, this number only applies to children and adults older than fourteen. Younger children should consume less, which is worrisome given that kids consume a lot of salty processed snack foods.

So the range 1,500 to 2,300 mg/day is not really a range of recommended minimum and maximum at all. Rather, it represents the maximum allowances for groups at higher and lower risk for hypertension and heart disease, and doesn't cover all ages at that.

However

The article definitely does represent that salt intake is a controversy. Salt is an electrolyte that is in fact essential for muscle contraction and relaxation, nerve impulses, and fluid balance -- all of which, as a matter of fact, are key for running! Because we sweat out salt along with water during exercise, it needs to be replenished -- hence all the sport drinks which contain salt. A Powerade beverage contains only about 150 mg of sodium, which is approximately equivalent to a can of low-sodium chicken noodle soup from Campbell's. However a classic can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup contains more than five times that amount! Salt intake also needs to be balanced with water intake. Otherwise, it has a dehydrating effect which is unhealthy and detrimental to your workout.

So the moral of the story: be critical of what you read and consider where information is coming from. Opinions can be misinterpreted as facts and accepted facts can be presented in many different ways, not to mention change as more research is conducted. Also, keep in mind that you may not need as much salt as you think, so limit salt intake in your diet by eating fewer processed foods or eat foods with low sodium recipes. Hydrate during your runs, and a small dose of electrolytes wouldn't hurt during a long one. Flavor for food, electrolyte for exercise, harbinger of heart disease, and everywhere in nature -- can't live with it can't live without it, salt means so much.

~ marina komarovsky