FDA Hopes to “Shake” Hidden Salt in Our Diets
(CBS) Ninety percent of Americans eat too much salt — most eat twice the recommended amount.
Now the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to set limits on the amount of sodium allowed in our food. But where is all that salt coming from?
On “The Early Show,” CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton revealed the secret salt in our diets and how to “shake” the habit.
According to Ashton, salt is a very essential electrolyte in the body, which makes up the majority of the blood. Our body needs salt. It’s not all bad like so many other things.
“Your blood tastes salty and your sweat is obviously made up of salt. What happens in the body is water follows every molecule of salt. So, if you ingest a lot of salt, you will retain a lot of water and for people with kidney problems, heart problems, high blood pressure, that can be dangerous,” she said.
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated 150,000 lives could be saved a year if we lighten up on salt.
So, is it all about the salt shaker?
“It’s actually not,” Ashton said. “A lot of us say, ‘I don’t add salt to our food so I don’t have to worry about this.’ Not so. If you look at daily recommended amounts that put it into context, 1,500 milligrams a day is what we’re supposed to get. The average American gets twice that amount, 3,400 milligrams. It’s coming from hidden sources, things you would not expect.”
Some examples of foods that have hidden salt include: cereal, cottage cheese, bread, salad dressing, tomato sauce and chicken.
• Cottage cheese has a cup has about 900 milligrams of sodium.
• A bagel, you don’t think you’re ingesting salt with breakfast, but it’s about a third of what you should have every day.
• Even whole grain cereal like Raisin Bran, one cup has 400 milligrams of sodium.
• One serving of salad dressing also has about 300 to 400 milligrams of sodium.
“Packaged food, processed food, and restaurant prepared food. Even if you cook at home, things like tomato sauce on top of your nice pasta, it’s loaded with salt and prepared chicken can be injected with a salt solution to make it appear more plump, filled with sodium,” she said.
How do you cut sodium out of your diet?
“A couple things. This bears mention again and again. You want to eat more fresh foods and eat fewer or less processed foods,” Ashton explained. “Obviously, as we’ve said today, you want to limit your use of condiments, like tomato sauce, salad dressing in limited amounts and use herbs and spices to retrain your taste buds so you don’t say, this is horrible. Because at the end of the day you want your food to taste good, but healthy at same time.”
Drinking fewer sugary beverages could be linked to lower blood pressure
Sugar-sweetened beverages get blamed for various health woes, obesity being one. But a new study finds there may be a link between drinking fewer sugar-sweetened beverages and lowering blood pressure.
The study included 810 men and women age 25 to 70 who were part of a lifestyle intervention study and had prehypertension or stage I hypertension. At the beginning of the study, participants drank an average of 10.5 ounces a day of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Overall, drinking one less serving, or 12 ounces, of sugar-sweetened beverages per day was associated with 1.8 drop in systolic blood pressure, and a 1.1 drop in diastolic blood pressure over 18 months. After the researchers adjusted for the weight loss the study participants experienced, there was still a significant difference seen in lowered blood pressure — 0.7 for systolic, and 0.4 for diastolic. There was no relationship seen between a change in drinking diet beverages and differences in blood pressure.
Researchers tried to determine if the culprit in the sugar-sweetened beverages was the sugar, or the caffeine. A link was seen between lower blood pressure and consuming less sugar (glucose, fructose, sucrose, and combined forms of sugar), but not between caffeine consumption and a change in blood pressure.
Those who drank more sugar-sweetened beverages also tended to eat more calories, but less protein, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, and dietary fiber.
“Our findings suggest that reducing sugar-sweetened beverages and sugar consumption may be an important dietary strategy to lower blood pressure and further reduce other blood pressure-related diseases,” said Dr. Liwei Chen, lead author of the study, in a news release. Chen is an assistant professor at Louisiana State University Health Science Center-School of Public Health in New Orleans.
The study was released today in the journal Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Assn.
– Jeannine Stein
Photo credit: Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press
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