How High Salt Content Affects Our Diet

Male: On the web and in your hands, this is the MDiTV. Andrew Holtz: Oh! Can you smell the salt air? No we’re not launching at the shore and that salt isn’t in the air. It’s on our food even if you never reach for the shaker. Restaurant cooks poured it on and we’re eating out them and buying more prepared foods than ever in history. But salts are stock on every isle of the grocery store; it’s added to cereal, soda, cottage cheese even raw chicken. It’s all adds up to dosing the average American with twice the recommended daily salt intake perhaps causing billions of dollars worth of preventable health problems. Dr. Maureen Mays says, most people don’t realize how much salt they’re consuming. Dr. Maureen Mays: Sodium people who look right over them so people see of food product for example that’s low fat and got only healthy carbs that got a low carbohydrates index and so they but it thinking it’s a great thing and little have nearly have of there dietary recommendation for sodium for the entire day. Andrew Holtz: A new report from the National Institute of Medicine calls us for broad action to reduce the amount of salt in our diets in order to prevent high blood pressure. The report says by causing heart disease, stroke and other health problems, high blood pressure responsible for about 1 in six tests in the United States. Dr. Mays says, the goals is not to bond salt but to reduce the amount of salt hiding in and prepared foods at restaurant and in grocery stores. Dr. Maureen Mays: So what I am going from a exceptionally large amount of sodium down to just normal amount of sodium which will calling sodium restriction but really is just going back to the way people use to eat 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. Andrew Holtz: Other countries have done it and it’s been done in research trials in the United States. New York State is already begun a program to reduce salt in the food supply by 1/5 within five years. However while salt intake in high blood pressure are link some experts point out that just because studies link salt to high blood pressure, doesn’t necessarily mean that reducing salt consumption will prevent all the health problems associated with hypertension. Dr. James Underberg says, we don’t yet have enough evidence to be sure salt reduction policies will actually lengthen lives. Dr. James Underberg: The grandest team of aggressively going out and reducing salt consumption by trying to impact it to a lot of other different public health agendas from my prospective that we still needs to be proven as far as what type of outcomes that would generate. Andrew Holtz: Still the proponents of programs in regulations intended to reduce the amount of salts hidden in our foods would give people who want to control the salt in there diets a fair shake.