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It is one of the great oddities of nutrition that public health guidelines invariably recommend salt reduction but the science is so hard to do that the value of doing so can't be proven unequivocally. Hypertension specialists insist that salt reduction is essential for controlling high blood pressure, and many people with high blood pressure can demonstrate that this is true.
So why can't the science show it? I'd say because even the lowest salt intakes are higher than recommended. Because everyone consumes higher-than-recommended amounts, it's impossible to divide people into meaningful groups of salt eaters and see whether low-salt diets work.
With that said, here are the latest events in the salt wars:
1. An article by a group of investigators in California and Washington state, "Can dietary sodium be modified by public policy," argues that it makes no difference who you are, everybody consumes salt in the same range. Therefore, there is no point in trying to lower it.
2. Not so, say critics, who point out that the authors of that study consult with the food and salt industries (and, therefore, have conscious or unconscious biases) and that plenty of evidence demonstrates the value of salt reduction.
3. ConAgra says it will cut the salt in its products by 20 percent in the next few years, according to an article in Bloomberg News (in which I am quoted). Why is ConAgra doing this? To lower the salt before the company is forced to. Regulators are well aware that nearly 80 percent of the salt in American diets comes from processed and pre-prepared foods, not salt shakers.
Expect to hear lots more about the need to reduce salt intake this year.
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Actually, there is no uniform recommendation on sodium. For example, the recommended allowance in the UK is double that of the US.
Hypertension specialists do *not* all agree on a uniform approach to sodium. It is a minority of hypertensive people whose hypertension is sodium-sensitive. Most PCPs don't bother testing people to see if their hypertension is sodium-sensitive. One convenient derivative result of recommending a low sodium diet generally to hypertensive patients is that it will tend to restrict the kinds of high-fat, high-sugar processed foods that contribute to the obesity of many (but, again, not all). And, from what I've heard from medical folks informally, that plus general laziness appears to be the real foundation of the generalized recommendations to reduce dietary sodium.
Another sad campaign to make more "bad" foods is about the worst approach. There are too many of them, and the public just starts to tune out.
When will food nazis realize they are part of the problem, not part of the solution? Not bloody likely soon, it seems.
Let's distinguish between table salt (sodium chloride, which is really for laundry emergencies), and sea salt. There is an extensive literature pointing to the benefits of moderate use of sea salt.
Sea salt is basically sodium chloride as well (over 85%, depending). If table salt, which is over 95% NaCl, is "bad" for you, it's certainly because of the NaCl. If sea salt is largely made of the same stuff, then it's "bad" for you, too. QED.
That said, why do the food police think that the general population needs to reduce sodium intake if only a portion of the people *with* hypertension are adversely affected by it? If you don't have high blood pressure, then what's wrong with using as much salt as you want?
Because of lazy groupthink among the bien pensant.