A PINCH OF SALT
Whether or not you should reduce your daily salt intake depends on which group of experts you believe. One groups recommendation can seem like good advice until you find another opinion telling you exactly the opposite.
The Food Standards Agency in the UK has set a target of reducing the average salt intake of adults to 6g a day by the year 2010. This is backed up by the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrion (SACN) which is an independent expert committee that advises the FSA and the Department of Health.
In 1994, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (COMA) recommended reducing salt intake from 9g a day to 6g, based on evidence of a link between high salt intake and high blood pressure.In 2003 this evidence was reviewed by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition to consider if the previous recommendations to reduce salt intakes were still valid.SACN concluded that the evidence of a link between salt intake and blood pressure had increased since 1994. They said that high levels of salt raise the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. SACN then recommended that salt intake be further reduced to 6g a day.
Good advice? Not so, according to research in summer 2005 from the University Medical Centre Utrecht in the Netherlands.Professor Deiderick Grobbee, a cardiovascular specialist and an author of the report, said "If people stick within a range of moderate sodium intake, which we normally get from salt in our food, there is no material variation to the risk of mortality."
The research, known as the Rotterdam Study, involved almost 8000 people in their fifties and above, and found that as long as their salt intake was moderate - no more than 16g a day - the effect on blood pressure was insignificant.It was only if consumption rose to between 21g and 27g a day the risk of stroke increased.
These results, however, were condemned by supporters of salt reduction.Prof Graham McGregor, a cardiovascular specialist at St George's Hospital, London, chairman of Consensus Action on Salt and Health, said "You will always find scientists that will go against the main body of research.Chronic ingestion of the amount of salt that we eat, slowly puts up our blood pressure and is largely responsible for many strokes and heart attacks and that's why the five to six grams a day target was set."
Clear as mud, then.
Whether or not you should reduce your daily salt intake depends on which group of experts you believe. One groups recommendation can seem like good advice until you find another opinion telling you exactly the opposite.
The Food Standards Agency in the UK has set a target of reducing the average salt intake of adults to 6g a day by the year 2010. This is backed up by the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrion (SACN) which is an independent expert committee that advises the FSA and the Department of Health.
In 1994, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (COMA) recommended reducing salt intake from 9g a day to 6g, based on evidence of a link between high salt intake and high blood pressure.In 2003 this evidence was reviewed by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition to consider if the previous recommendations to reduce salt intakes were still valid.SACN concluded that the evidence of a link between salt intake and blood pressure had increased since 1994. They said that high levels of salt raise the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. SACN then recommended that salt intake be further reduced to 6g a day.
Good advice? Not so, according to research in summer 2005 from the University Medical Centre Utrecht in the Netherlands.Professor Deiderick Grobbee, a cardiovascular specialist and an author of the report, said "If people stick within a range of moderate sodium intake, which we normally get from salt in our food, there is no material variation to the risk of mortality."
The research, known as the Rotterdam Study, involved almost 8000 people in their fifties and above, and found that as long as their salt intake was moderate - no more than 16g a day - the effect on blood pressure was insignificant.It was only if consumption rose to between 21g and 27g a day the risk of stroke increased.
These results, however, were condemned by supporters of salt reduction.Prof Graham McGregor, a cardiovascular specialist at St George's Hospital, London, chairman of Consensus Action on Salt and Health, said "You will always find scientists that will go against the main body of research.Chronic ingestion of the amount of salt that we eat, slowly puts up our blood pressure and is largely responsible for many strokes and heart attacks and that's why the five to six grams a day target was set."
Clear as mud, then.
posted by . | 1:09 AM
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