SI challenges FDA to join in call for controlled trial of salt and health outcomes
When the federal government set up its program to ensure the safety of American foods, it recognized that some ingredients had been used safely for years -- for some, for centuries and for a few, like salt, for millennia. They prioritized their resources and accorded these proven-safe ingredients recognition as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). The decision was reviewed and affirmed in 1982. The process is about to be re-run.
Arguing that salt affects blood pressure, a number of advocacy groups endorse removing GRAS from salt and having FDA set food-by-food limits on salt content on the assumption that this would produce lower sodium intakes and lower blood pressure. Defenders of GRAS for salt (SI, food manufacturers, some health groups and prominent hypertension researchers, argue that blood pressure is an "surrogate" risk factor -- and not a very good surrogate at that! There are other surrogate candidates to predict chronic disease risk: insulin resistance, plasma renin activity and more. Salt affects them as well. Salt's defenders -- like the Salt Institute -- have insisted the right test isn't blood pressure, but rather actual disease outcomes like heart attack incidence or, better still, mortality rates.
FDA is conducting a hearing Nov. 29th to air the controversy with prominent proponents of both views delivering oral testimony to an FDA panel in College Park, MD.
The Salt Institute will be testifying, renewing its call for a controlled trial of the health outcomes of low-salt diets and challenging FDA to help fund the study. Read the news release or the full testimony .
For a good review of the issues, see JunkFoodScience's story "The good-bad salt debate gets a hearing at the FDA ."
