Salt should be regulated food additive, group says

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Salt should be regulated food additive, group says

24 Feb 2005 17:13:44 GMT

Source: Reuters

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24233569.htm

 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - A consumer group sued the federal

government on Thursday, saying that salt is killing tens of thousands of

Americans and that regulators have done too little to control salt in

food.

Despite advisories to take it easy on sodium, Americans are now

consuming about 4,000 milligrams a day -- nearly double the recommended

limit to keep blood pressure under control, the Center for Science in

the Public Interest said.

So the CSPI renewed a lawsuit first filed in 1983 to ask federal courts

to force the Food and Drug Administration to declare sodium a food

additive instead of categorizing it as " generally recognized as safe. "

This would give the agency the authority to set limits for salt in

foods.

" There is no way the FDA can look at the science and say with a straight

face that salt is 'generally recognized as safe,' " CSPI executive

director Michael Jacobson said in a statement.

" In fact, salt is generally recognized as unsafe, because it is a major

cause of heart attacks and stroke. The federal government should require

food manufacturers to gradually lower their sodium levels. "

The CSPI said Americans get most of their salt in processed and

restaurant foods. In 1983 the FDA had just begun requiring labels

describing sodium content on some packaged foods so the court decided to

wait and see how it worked.

The new lawsuit, filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the

District of Columbia, contends that it has not worked well because salt

content in foods is higher than ever.

" FDA is currently evaluating CSPI's report on salt, including the

recommendations it contains, " Kathleen Quinn, a spokeswoman for the

agency, said.

The government says Americans should try to keep sodium to about 2,300

milligrams a day. " This is about 1 teaspoon, " the American Heart

Association says.

Salt is not found only in the salt shaker. For example, a teaspoon of

baking soda contains 1,000 mg of sodium.

Patients with high blood pressure and others at high risk are told to

eat even less salt -- 1,500 mg a day. " Nevertheless, sodium intake has

increased steadily since the 1970s, " the CSPI said in a statement.

" The medical community has reached a consensus that diets high in sodium

are a major cause of high blood pressure as well as pre-hypertension, or

blood pressure just short of high blood pressure, " said Dr. Stephen

Havas of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

" Today roughly 65 million Americans have high blood pressure and another

45 million have pre-hypertension. "

The CSPI issued a report saying that processed foods and restaurant fare

contribute almost 80 percent of sodium to the U.S. diet. Frozen dinners

are especially high in salt, the report finds.

Depending on the brand, some salad dressings contain nearly a quarter of

the day's allowance of sodium while others are low in sodium, the report

finds.

One chain restaurant's breakfast contains two days' worth of sodium --

4,460 mg -- the CSPI report said.

Chinese restaurant meals can be especially, high too. " A typical order

of General Tso's chicken with rice has 3,150 mg, " the group said.

Dr. Claude Lenfant, president of the World Hypertension League and a

former head of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute supported

the report.

" If we could reduce the sodium in processed and restaurant foods by

half, we could save about 150,000 lives per year, " he said.