Why Is Salt Bad for You? One Researcher Disputes the Claim

Do you love salt? Most people do. But you've also probably heard for decades that you should be cutting down on your salt intake. According to popular belief, the sodium health risks include high blood pressure and a concomitant increase in the risk of heart disease and stroke. And the government is stepping in now, with a report by the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, calling on the Food and Drug Administration to regulate high levels of sodium in foods.

The FDA responded by calling for gradual and voluntary cutbacks by the food industry and warned that it may make stricter mandates to cap maximum sodium levels in food sold to consumers. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, representing the packaged food industry, acknowledged the study's findings and says it will cooperate with federal policies.

"Everyone's in agreement that something needs to be done," FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott said in a statement.

Well, not everyone.

UC Davis nutrition professor Judith Stern and three colleagues last November published a study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology that questions that "scientific logic and feasibility" of limiting sodium consumption.

Stern, along with UC Davis adjunct professor David McCarron, reviewed data from a range of worldwide studies and examined neuroscience research and found that a body naturally regulates salt intake "within a narrowly defined physiological range."

According to the Institute of Medicine report, Americans daily consume 3,400 milligrams of sodium -- 1,200 milligrams more than the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommend.

The Harvard School of Public Health has reported that about 90,000 deaths a year could be averted if Americans abided by the current 2,300 milligrams per day guidelines.

Stern, however, said the call for salt mandates is premature and should require further research before policy is enacted.

"If a 'normal' range of sodium intake exists that is consistent with the optimal function of established peripheral and central nervous system mechanisms, that fact should be the sole basis of national nutrition guidelines for dietary sodium intake," Stern's study said. "To attempt to use public policy to abrogate human physiology would be futile and possibly harmful to human health."

Stern defends her strong words. In responding to the Institute of Medicine Report, she said, "the evidence is out there" to refute belief that reductions in salt intake reduces health risk.

"For instance," Stern said, "Dr. Michael Alderman found that in only five of 11 studies did salt (reduction) improve heart attack (incidence)."

Alderman, professor of medicine and epidemiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, studied 2,000 men with high blood pressure and found an "unexpectedly high" incidence of heart attacks in those who were put on salt-restricted diets.