American Heart Association Stands Firm on Daily Salt Intake Recommendation
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Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — There is some disagreement among experts about how much salt is too much. Now the American Heart Association has weighed in with the latest opinion.
Even when we’re not shaking salt on to our meals, we are still consuming it from all kinds of foods. In fact, most of the sodium in the typical American diet comes from processed and prepared foods.
While there is wide agreement that Americans consume too much salt, and that it contributes to high blood pressure and other problems, there have been recent calls to increase the recommended daily salt allowance for healthy people.
After a broad review of the data, the AHA is standing firm in its guidelines. They say the evidence is strong to restrict salt intake to 1,500 milligrams a day — even in healthy people. That’s less than one teaspoon of table salt.
The group says lowering salt intake has multiple health effects, notably decreasing cardiovascular and kidney disease. They state some of the recent calls for higher salt allowances are “based on flawed analyses of data from observational studies that were not planned to study sodium relationships, with great potential to yield misleading results, and on misinterpretation of clinical trial results.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio