January 15, 2008
Hold the salt:
Eating too much sodium carries health risks
By Camilla A. Herrera,
Staff Writer
Throw the salt shaker away.
Sprinkling salt on food, even just a little, adds to already harmful levels of sodium, the main ingredient in salt, most Americans consume daily.
"There is a difference between salt as a nutrient and salt as a seasoning," says Robert Stark, a cardiologist and medical director of the Cardiovascular Prevention Program at Greenwich Hospital.
"Most Americans take in much more than they need."
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the average adult needs no more than 2,300 mg of sodium a day.
We get that amount naturally from unseasoned meats, fowl, fish, vegetables, legumes and dairy, says Milton Stokes, a Stamford dietitian and nutritionist.
"Without salt, we perish," he says. "But that is nothing we need to worry about. There is salt in almost everything. We don't need to add salt to anything."
Stark says we need sodium to help regulate the balance of fluids and help conduct nerve impulses in the body.
"Salt is essential for keeping the volume of blood in our body stable and it's essential for keeping the internal cellular environment of body tissue in balance," he says.
Stark, who lowers the daily amount of sodium Americans should consume to 2,000 mg, believes Americans typically take in triple that, if not more.
Stokes says most excessive sodium is found in packaged and processed foods, where it is used as a preservative and to enhance flavor and appearance.
The Mayo Clinic puts daily average sodium intake from packaged and processed foods at about 77 percent, compared to 5 percent that is added during cooking, 6 percent added while eating. Only 12 percent comes from natural sources.
Too much salt, says Stark, can lead to high blood pressure and hypertension.
"When we add salt beyond what the body needs, the chief thing that happens is we cause an increase in the volume of fluid in the body. When we retain additional fluid, we are pumping extra fluid around the cardiovascular system and that puts a burden on the heart and the blood vessels.
"Hypertension is abnormally increased pressure of the blood inside the arteries of the body. That can also cause stroke, heart attack and blockage of arteries." |
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Stark cites a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute study of 2,415 healthy adults at the National Institutes of Health that showed a 25 percent to 30 percent reduction in cardiovascular disease in those who reduced their salt intake by 25 percent.
Such evidence spurred a recent call by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate sodium amounts in processed and packaged foods.
Lisa Corrado, a nutritionist and personal chef who specializes in nutritional counseling through her business, The Eating Well Center in New Canaan, says a lot of hidden sodium is also found in frozen meals and restaurant food.
Whether regulation can effectively control salt intake remains debatable, say the experts.
But for Stark, it promises to raise awareness about the sources of sodium and how much is too much. Regulation also would put excessive salt on equal terms with cholesterol and fat as nutritional risk factors for heart disease.
Corrado, who also thinks not enough attention is paid to excessive salt consumption, thinks spreading the word, even if regulation falls through, is a good thing.
"We already regulate definitions of fat," she says. "I don't see why we can't do the same with salt."
Stokes says: "I do think we need to get the word out about salt and cut down on salt. We can't push food companies to do it, but we can get the word out."
Getting the word out begins by educating consumers about sodium.
Among the high-sodium culprits Stokes lists are canned broth and soup, lunch meats, frozen meals including pizza, tomato juice, potato chips, pickles and pretzels.
Corrado adds canned beans and vegetables, spice mixes, soy sauce and ketchup to the list.
What is surprising to clients, say Stokes and Corrado, is that foods considered natural, such as breakfast cereals, also contain sodium.
Stokes challenges consumers to check labels for instant oatmeal, or compare sodium amounts in a serving of Cheerios with a serving of regular potato chips.
"People demonize potato chips, and they do have saturated fats, but they will see cereals have salt," he says.
It's all the more reason to shake the salt habit, says Stark.
It is not too difficult to do, he adds, because the flavor is an acquired taste.
"After people who go on a low-salt regimen, when they go out to a restaurant or someone else's house, they will notice the salt. Reducing salt intake increases a person's sensitivity to the taste of salt. Your taste buds do adjust."
Tomorrow in Food: Area cooks discuss how to plan, shop for and prepare meals that are low-salt but full of flavor.
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