The UK's Food Standards Agency has made since-disproven claims to have achieved population sodium reduction. This week FSA and the Department of Health rolled out a new National Diet and Nutrition Survey .
The NDNS promises to use 24-hour urine samples (UNaV) to measure population sodium intakes -- the approach advocated by the Salt Institute in place of the dietary recall surveys FSA used to claim an overall sodium reduction. But, surprise, the results apparently didn't confirm the rosy projections of the press office. The report is silent on sodium with the excuse that "results from the urine analysis are not included in the current report as the sample size for year one is too small to report."
Not to worry, scientists have reviewed the data already -- and published an analysis that documents no reduction in sodium intake . So, Britons are safe from their government's mindless meddling -- at least for now. Last Fall, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology:
UNaV and, thus, dietary sodium intake has varied minimally in the UK over the 25 yr encompassing these surveys. The mean sodium intake over the time period 1984 to 2008 was 150 mmol/d. Second, more than 6300 subjects, many providing multiple samples, are the source of these 24 h UNaV measurements from a variety of regions of the UK and Ireland, and they fall within a relatively narrow range.
Not shown, but assessed by us, was the individually determined mean and range of UNaV for women and men where the gender breakdown was available from the survey. Sodium intake for women was 129. Likewise, male sodium intake, which included a 1982 survey of only men living in London, was constant over the same period, although, as would be expected on a caloric basis, higher than that of women, 169.4. The male and female analyses excluded the three Intersalt sites, as the published data provided only the mean for the combined cohort. This statistical analysis of all available 24 h UNaV from the UK does not support recent FSA pronouncements that their national campaign directed at sodium reduction has achieved a significant reduction in the population.
Perhaps the next NDNS will "find" the urinary data these other scientists have already reported in the peer-reviewed literature.
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