Salt — Widely Used But Often Misunderstood
December 22, 2017 at 5:52 p.m.
By Max [email protected]
If you are confused, join the crowd. Sodium, which the body cannot manufacture, is an essential element needed for proper fluid balance, nerve transmission and muscle contraction, and it — along with potassium, calcium and magnesium — plays a vital role in regulating blood pressure. There have been a number of claims that reducing dietary sodium (which represents 40 percent of the salt molecule) is crucial to our well-being and some that report that doing so is a health hazard. The majority of scientific findings, however, suggest that most Americans should cut back on sodium. Excess sodium is responsible for most cases of high blood pressure which is the leading risk factor for heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. High blood pressure continues to be a health problem: today one in three adults is afflicted, and of those only half have it under control. Another third of adults have blood pressure higher than normal, though not yet in the high blood pressure range. Poor treatment remains a serious contributor to heart disease and deaths.
Many factors are responsible for the excess of salt in our diet. Unfortunately, there is an innate response that drives a human to seek and ingest salt containing foods and fluids. This means that for many of us our daily salt intake is in excess of physiological requirements. A major reason is that the majority of salt is added to our foods by food and drink processors and restaurants, and not from our salt shakers.
The recommended daily intake for healthy American adults is only 2300 milligrams of sodium per day, or the amount in about 1-1/8 teaspoons of salt. This information will be provided in the new nutrition facts labeling, scheduled to take effect beginning in mid-2018 until January 2021. Currently the average American consumes more than 3400 mg per day, an amount often found in a single restaurant meal. According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, an average reduction of just 400 milligrams of sodium a day could save 28,000 lives and $7 billion in health care costs yearly. Cutting back, therefore, should be fairly simple, avoid processed meats, buy low sodium or sodium free products like soups and condiments, and use less salt when cooking your own meals at home.
In addition to health matters, there is some interesting history surrounding salt. Until modern times it provided the principal way to store food and Egyptians used it to make mummies. Salt has the ability to preserve, protect against decay, and to sustain life. On every continent, once human beings began cultivating crops, they began looking for salt to add to their diet. How they learned of this need is a mystery. Another development that created the need for salt began when animals were raised for meat rather than killing wild ones. Animals, like humans, need salt.
Almost no place on earth is without salt, and so for all of history until the 20th century, salt was desperately searched for, traded for and fought over. For thousands of years, salt represented wealth. Many governments taxed it to raise money for wars. Soldiers and sometimes workers were paid in salt. (The Latin word for "salt" was sal, and the "salt money" given to soldiers was called salarium. Salarium later became used for the regular pension or salary paid to soldiers.) An excellent book titled "Salt — World History" written by Mark Kurlansky provides a remarkable story about salt and how it influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires and inspired revolutions.
While the historical aspects of salt make interesting reading, its use as part of our well-being is much more important. Reducing the intake of salt appears to be a prudent dietary consideration in the management of high pressure. Few risk factors are as important to health. High blood pressure is second only to smoking as a preventable cause of heart attacks and strokes and heart disease remains the leading killer of Americans. Under new guidelines high blood pressure will be defined as 130/80 millimeters of mercury or greater for anyone with a significant risk of heart attacks or stroke. The previous guidelines defined high blood pressure as 140/90. (The first number describes the pressure on blood vessels when the heart contracts, and the second refers to pressure when the heart relaxes between beats.) To calculate your risk of heart trouble, contact your physician and use the online calculator sponsored by the American Heart Association. The calculator will ask for your blood pressure and cholesterol measurements. Try ccccalculator.ccctracker.com, it can help to safeguard your health.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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If you are confused, join the crowd. Sodium, which the body cannot manufacture, is an essential element needed for proper fluid balance, nerve transmission and muscle contraction, and it — along with potassium, calcium and magnesium — plays a vital role in regulating blood pressure. There have been a number of claims that reducing dietary sodium (which represents 40 percent of the salt molecule) is crucial to our well-being and some that report that doing so is a health hazard. The majority of scientific findings, however, suggest that most Americans should cut back on sodium. Excess sodium is responsible for most cases of high blood pressure which is the leading risk factor for heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. High blood pressure continues to be a health problem: today one in three adults is afflicted, and of those only half have it under control. Another third of adults have blood pressure higher than normal, though not yet in the high blood pressure range. Poor treatment remains a serious contributor to heart disease and deaths.
Many factors are responsible for the excess of salt in our diet. Unfortunately, there is an innate response that drives a human to seek and ingest salt containing foods and fluids. This means that for many of us our daily salt intake is in excess of physiological requirements. A major reason is that the majority of salt is added to our foods by food and drink processors and restaurants, and not from our salt shakers.
The recommended daily intake for healthy American adults is only 2300 milligrams of sodium per day, or the amount in about 1-1/8 teaspoons of salt. This information will be provided in the new nutrition facts labeling, scheduled to take effect beginning in mid-2018 until January 2021. Currently the average American consumes more than 3400 mg per day, an amount often found in a single restaurant meal. According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, an average reduction of just 400 milligrams of sodium a day could save 28,000 lives and $7 billion in health care costs yearly. Cutting back, therefore, should be fairly simple, avoid processed meats, buy low sodium or sodium free products like soups and condiments, and use less salt when cooking your own meals at home.
In addition to health matters, there is some interesting history surrounding salt. Until modern times it provided the principal way to store food and Egyptians used it to make mummies. Salt has the ability to preserve, protect against decay, and to sustain life. On every continent, once human beings began cultivating crops, they began looking for salt to add to their diet. How they learned of this need is a mystery. Another development that created the need for salt began when animals were raised for meat rather than killing wild ones. Animals, like humans, need salt.
Almost no place on earth is without salt, and so for all of history until the 20th century, salt was desperately searched for, traded for and fought over. For thousands of years, salt represented wealth. Many governments taxed it to raise money for wars. Soldiers and sometimes workers were paid in salt. (The Latin word for "salt" was sal, and the "salt money" given to soldiers was called salarium. Salarium later became used for the regular pension or salary paid to soldiers.) An excellent book titled "Salt — World History" written by Mark Kurlansky provides a remarkable story about salt and how it influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires and inspired revolutions.
While the historical aspects of salt make interesting reading, its use as part of our well-being is much more important. Reducing the intake of salt appears to be a prudent dietary consideration in the management of high pressure. Few risk factors are as important to health. High blood pressure is second only to smoking as a preventable cause of heart attacks and strokes and heart disease remains the leading killer of Americans. Under new guidelines high blood pressure will be defined as 130/80 millimeters of mercury or greater for anyone with a significant risk of heart attacks or stroke. The previous guidelines defined high blood pressure as 140/90. (The first number describes the pressure on blood vessels when the heart contracts, and the second refers to pressure when the heart relaxes between beats.) To calculate your risk of heart trouble, contact your physician and use the online calculator sponsored by the American Heart Association. The calculator will ask for your blood pressure and cholesterol measurements. Try ccccalculator.ccctracker.com, it can help to safeguard your health.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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