The importance of the question posed by this article is further highlighted by the efforts of national agencies and municipal departments, such as the British Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the New York City Department of Health, which have set in motion campaigns to mandate food companies and restaurants to lower the sodium content of foods.

In the course of their analysis and included in this article, the UC Davis investigators statistically assessed government-sponsored surveys of 24-hour urinary sodium excretion completed at 13 sites within the United Kingdom and Ireland involving more than 6,000 subjects since 1982. This assessment indicates that there has been no change during the past 25 years in the dietary sodium intake of individuals living in the UK and Ireland and is at odds with FSA's recent public claims of a significant reduction following that agency's multi-million pound campaign to restrict salt intake in the UK.

Is Regulation Necessary in the Battle Against Salt?

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and an Institute of Medicine (IOM) Panel on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake are working to determine what the 2010 sodium intake guideline will be and how to implement strategies -- including regulatory and legislative actions -- to further lower Americans' sodium intake.

However, the current daily intake guidelines call for a maximum daily intake of 2,300 mg of sodium, the equivalent of one teaspoon of table salt. These recommendations are already 17 percent lower than the lowest level of worldwide sodium intake (2,700 mg) and 38 percent lower than the worldwide average sodium intake (3,700 mg).

According to Judith Stern, Sc.D., professor of nutrition at UC Davis and a past member of the 1985 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, "If this body of evidence is not taken into account, updates to the Dietary Guidelines or regulatory actions are based on partial science. Clearly, before dietary sodium intake can or should be modified, additional discussion and analysis are required."

SOURCE UC Davis