The U.S. Department of Agriculture released results of the 2005-2006 NHANES database today. Entitled "What we eat in America," you're probably going to read about it in the MSM. I doubt you'll read in the newspapers what you read here.
This survey of what Americans eat and how it relates to their health and mortality has been conducted for about 35 years. The 9,349 individuals are selected to be a cross-section of American society.
Analyses of earlier NHANES reports (I, II and III) have consistently and convincingly disparaged the notion that those on low-salt diets enjoy any health advantages. See, for example, the analysis of NHANES III on this point presented recently to the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Clinical Nutrition.
The 2005-2006 data will eventually be combined with health outcomes data allowing this analysis. For now, however, we have the nutrient intake data. The sodium data is on page 4 . Those data unmask another shibboleth employed by crusaders for universal salt reduction, namely that African Americans and Mexican immigrants are particularly prone to consume "excess sodium" putting themselves at a health risk.
The data tell a different tale. Whatever the ultimate health outcomes of these groups, don't blame salt intake. The average American in 2005-2006 consumed 3,436 milligrams of sodium a day -- the same as it's been for a century or more and smack dab in the middle of the global range of population intakes, contrary to anti-salt proselytizers' contention that Americans eat an abnormally high amount of salt.
Compare the average 3,436 mg/day to these groups; what do you find? African Americans ("non-Hispanic blacks" in the government's nomenclature) consumed only 3,257 mg/day. That is 5% less than average and 8% less than Caucasians. For Mexican Americans the difference is greater still; Hispanics eat only 3,162 mg/day of sodium, 8% less than average and more than 10% less than whites.
The Salt Institute has argued that we need to focus more on total quality diet; our opponents have explicitly rejected that policy direction , arguing that sodium/salt reduction would be superior. Let's follow the data. African Americans are the identified priority beneficiaries of salt reduction, its proponents say. Experts have argued that dietary potassium is an excellent indicator of a qualty diet: the higher the potassium, the better the diet. These new USDA data show African Americans eating 14% less potassium than average. The data support our call for an emphasis on overall dietary improvement, not salt reduction.
It's been another bad month for the anti-salt crowd. In early July, other USDA data showed no change in Americans' sodium consumption over the past 40 years, disproving the argument that our increased consumption of processed foods has led to an increase in sodium intake. Not so, said USDA. Then, the study they welcomed as "definitive," actually disproved their contention that salt worsened asthmatic conditions . Pesky data, those.
