I always find it a bit strange to see the looks of disbelief on the faces of journalists when I tell them that lowering the salt content of foods will greatly increase the obesity epidemic. How can that be?

Well, it’s quite simple really. People will eat more food and ingest more calories just to satisfy their innate appetite for salt. We have decades of experience with animal feeding as a basis for this statement. If you’re freely feeding cattle expensive feed, you add more salt to satisfy their appetite and limit their intake. If you want them to eat more feed, you cut back on the salt.

For the skeptics out there, we have a great many examples which everyone can easily identify with. When we cut the nicotine out of cigarettes, people smoked far more; when we cut the sugar out of soft drinks, people swilled tons more low-cal beverages; when we cut the fat out of foods, people gorged themselves on low-fat, no-fat foods to such an extent, they ushered in the current obesity epidemic.

What do you possibly think people will do when they face a big bag of low-salt chips?

All the pharmacists out there should not be surprised in future when they come across a rash of doctors’ prescriptions from their obese patients – “Salt (generic sodium chloride), for control of obesity – shake on food as required.”

First of all, I am pleased that the dietary guidelines have finally begun to focus on whole foods and eating patterns rather than isolated nutrients. It’s a pity that it took the dietary guidelines 30 years and a public announcement by the Secretaries of Agriculture and HHS to state what grandma’s always said. I am also pleased that the Dietary Guidelines talk so highly about the Mediterranean eating pattern, which has been responsible for the excellent health statistics of that part of the world. What the dietary guidelines do not state, however, is that the levels of salt consumption in the Mediterranean diet are about 40% higher than in the US diet.

The new guidelines, if followed, will have significant unintended negative health consequences. A very recent Harvard study links low-salt diets to an increase in insulin resistance, the condition that is a precursor to Type 2 Diabetes. What’s more, many nutritionists predict the guidelines will worsen, not improve, the obesity crisis because people will consume more calories just to satisfy their innate salt appetite. Still other studies link lowered salt intakes to low-birth weights and cognition impairment in children and a greatly increased rate of falls and fractures among the elderly. (It is a standard practice in assisted living facilities to place all residents on low-salt diets – and the rates of falls and fractures in these assisted living facilities are three times as great as in the normal home environment.) Another recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by two renowned Harvard researchers demonstrates that while hypertension has increased among Americans over the last 40 years, sodium has remained virtually unchanged. These findings totally contradict the urban myth that assumes increasing salt intake is the main driver in population-wide hypertension. If, over the last four decades, high blood pressure increased significantly but salt consumption did not, then the two are not related. The Dietary Guidelines regarding salt are thus more a product of ideology rather than science. There is not a single scientific long-term study demonstrating that population-wide sodium reduction will lead to better overall health – on the contrary, there is considerable peer-reviewed clinical research that predicts several negative consequences, across all age groups. That is why the Salt Institute has, for many years, been the only organization that has repeatedly asked the Secretary HHS to support a large clinical trial that would show the health outcomes resulting from population-wide salt reduction. This request has always been refused. Because the Dietary Guidelines recommend a level of salt far lower than any other country in the world and lower than any period in recorded history, it effectively places the entire population into a massive clinical trial without our knowledge or without our consent.

Appenzell, Asiago, Brie, Gorgonzola, Camembert, Casciotta, Cheshire, Doppelrhamstufel, Stilton, Fontainebleau, Gloucester, Fontina, Neufchatel, Jarlsberg, Parmigiano Reggiano, Roquefort, Saint-Paulin, Vacherin-Fribourgeois – these are just a few of the thousands of cheeses produced around the world. Cheese is composed of the natural proteins and fat from the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep.

In some cases, a cheese may have a colorful and romantic history, such as the fabulous Italian Mozzarella di Bufala made from the milk of the water buffalo rather than from cow's milk. How on earth did Asian water buffalo get to Italy? Some say they were brought to Italy by the Goths during the migrations of the early medieval period, while others say that they were introduced by Normans from Sicily in the year 1000, and that traders from the Middle East originally introduced them into Sicily. Another theory is that water buffalo were brought from Mesopotamia into Italy by knights returning from the crusades. Whichever theory you ascribe to, one thing everyone can agree upon – the texture, aroma and creaminess of mozzarella from buffalo is incomparable and it’s all the result of the simple coagulation of the casein protein found in buffalo milk.

Natural cheeses are often cured in saturated salt brine. The salty brining solution removes excess water from the cheese and also helps to limit the growth of unwanted bacteria. Brine-cured cheeses have a slightly salty, savory flavor that is quite desirable in a great many cheeses, including Appenzeller, Asiago, Gouda and Parmesan. For other cheeses, such as Roquefort, Stilton and Gorgonzola varieties, salt is an indispensible ingredient for the growth of the Penicillium mold that gives these cheeses their blue-veined appearance and characteristic flavor.

What was started as a means of preserving milk has evolved in to a class of products that is universally adored around the world. Cheese can be eaten by itself, with a glass of wine, with fresh or preserved fruit, honey or crackers - as a meal or an appetizer. Good cheese, made with real milk is not cheap, but it is, without doubt, one of humankind’s great inventions.

Cheese is so popular that the idea of making artificial imitation cheese, called cheese analogs, was inevitable. Cheese analogs are made most frequently from soybeans but also made from rice, yeast and other non-dairy ingredients. Because analog cheese is an entirely formulated product, it can have an unlimited shelf life, a decreased cost, any artificial color or flavor and any desired melting or stretching characteristics. It can even be made cholesterol-free. That’s simply because it is not cheese.

The latest development is reduced salt in cheese . This can be easily accomplished because, as mentioned, analog cheese is not cheese, so there is no need for curing and no need for natural fermentation. The typical ingredient listing for analog mozzarella are: water, vegetable oil, soya concentrate, salt, spirit vinegar, artificial flavor, lactic acid (dairy-free), xanthan gum, carrageenan and yeast extract. To make life simple, for the other varieties of analog cheese the ingredients and their order in the ingredient list is identical, except that colors may be added at the end – paprika for analog cheddar cheese, turmeric for analog edam and annatto for analog gouda . It’s like different varieties of PlayDough – just change the food colors!

By reducing salt, the vinegar, artificial flavor, lactic acid, xanthan gum, carrageenan and even the yeast extract may all move ahead on the ingredient list. Now, that’s progress!

Give me natural cheese any day of the week!

The Institute of Medicine released its report on Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling today . In what is becoming the norm for the IOM, they totally missed the opportunity to produce something actually useful for the American public and once again demonstrated how gratuitous status and intellectual inertia can be coupled with a good dose of taxpayer's money to produce a 175 page report that is pathetic rubbish.

Not only were the authors of the report steeped in the dogma of outdated labeling practices, they could not tear themselves away from a nutrition doctrinaire that is patently false.

We have known for 4 decades that the front of the package was a totally useless place to communicate information to consumers. Under pressure from consumer groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, (who thought they could 'control' the food industry) the government quickly agreed to a series of front-of-package, side-of-package, and back-of-package labeling schemes. The fact is there is not enough real estate on a label for useful nutritional information, nor do consumers have enough time to read and digest it.

Of course, the understanding was that if the public was made fearful of certain nutrients, the limited information on the label would compliment this fear and the consumers' choices could be influenced. Never once was there the thought of actually educating the consumer, thereby allowing for an 'informed choice.'

From the very beginning of the labeling debate, there was the option to develop the Universal Product Code or UPS or Barcode into a consumer information system. For those consumers who had a genuine interest in nutrition, one swipe of the UPC across a scanner would bring up a complete database of nutritional information, recipes, allergies, etc., etc. No longer would there be a limitation on label real estate. Unfortunately, consumer advocacy organizations were far too interested in fighting it out with industry to employ some imagination in the interests of the constituency they supposedly worked for. Now, with near-universal access to the Internet and UPC-reading smartphones, this technology is easier to put into place than ever.

So conventional labeling systems, with all their insurmountable problems endured. Over the years, like a growing Tower of Babel, labeling systems became more complex and even less understandable. To deal with that problem, the food 'authoritarians' decided to simplify the label and go another step further in eliminating intelligent consumer's choice. Simplified systems intended to drive the consumer directly to a specific choice - traffic lights, check marks, scores, medical society endorsements - began to appear - designed to eliminate thought and dispense with informed decision making. Again, not the slightest thought given to educating the consumer.

Into the fray steps the Institute of Medicine whose 175 page report now says that the problem is that there is too much information on the front-of-package label. They recommend cutting it back to just four items. All consumers really need to know about is calories, saturated fat, trans fat and sodium.

This latest IOM report comes on the heels of two related publications: 1) the Harvard study by Bernstein and Willet , which revealed that sodium consumption has not changed in 40 years, while the rate of hypertension has gone up considerably, and 2) the report at the Obesity Society annual meeting in San Diego showing that calorie labeling on the menu did not reduce calorie consumption in fast-food restaurants.

The first publication revealed that sodium is not related to the rise in hypertension, which was always the main reason that the IOM wants salt consumption reduced, while the second report revealed that calorie labeling had little effect on consumer choice.

Talk about being a day late and a dollar short!

Despite all the claims of success made by the salt reduction advocates around the world, the actual results of their efforts on the marketplace don't come close to matching their rhetoric.

The world's largest soup company and the one that has been most aggressive in claiming major salt reductions for their line of soups has also experienced a dramatic decline in their soup sales since their salt reduction program began.

Despite the claims of reduced salt consumption by the now defunct Food Standards Agency, the sales of retail salt in the UK (including cooking, table and sea salt) have shot up by anywhere from 17.5 - 26.5% in the last year, depending upon which market watch reports you subscribe to . This seems to confirm what we have always believed - remove the salt from processed foods and consumers will simply replace it with table salt.

The latest news appears to be even more ominous for the anti-salt advocates. Yesterday's edition of the Irish Times contains an article describing the growing resistance to Ireland's copycat salt reduction program .

Paul Cullen, the consumer affairs correspondent for the Irish Times reports that a number of companies are starting to pull out of the Irish Food Safety Authority's registry of companies willing to join in salt reduction efforts. Even more significant, a far greater number than ever before have declined to even join the effort. Perhaps they, too, have been monitoring what has actually been going on in the marketplace.

The very public salt reduction circus continues to play out in the media, but when considering this ongoing shambles, it is far more important to be cognizant of real market developments rather than paying attention to the hype.

This week may go down as one of the bleakest in nutritional history. By total chance, two seemingly unrelated fragments of research coalesced to reveal the potential for unwarranted dietary recommendations, such as those promulgated by the Dietary Guidelines, to wreak havoc upon society.

In large headlines, London’s Daily Mail reported that researchers from Maastricht University in Holland have discovered that reduced salt diets during pregnancy lead to a disproportionate number of female births! Their conclusions followed a five-year study involving 172 Western European women aged from 23 to 42 who had all previously given birth to boys, but this time around they wanted girls.

Researchers instructed the women to cut out salt and eat lots of dairy products. Because diets with low levels of salt are not very palatable, many of the women dropped out of the survey, but 21 women stuck it out to the end. And, of the 21, 16 gave birth to daughters – indicating an astonishing success rate of almost 80 per cent!

Although this was the first time that humans have allowed themselves to be guinea pigs for such experiments, it will certainly not be the last. If the latest iteration of the Dietary Guidelines for American, expected to be released shortly, will ever be implemented it promises to be the largest clinical trial on record, using the entire population of the United States – 308 million people - as the test subjects. The new Dietary Guidelines recommend that Americans consume less than 4 grams of salt per day on average, a level lower than ever experienced in recorded human history and considerably less than that of any other modern society in the world!

If the researchers at Maastricht University are correct, this Dietary Guidelines recommendation may spell the doom of society as we know it.

No, I am not referring to our evolution into a female-dominated society similar to that living in the area north of the Black Sea, described by the famous Greek historian, Herodotus, in the fifth century BC. We all know that the all–female society of fierce warriors he called Amazons is little more than a myth.

What I am referring to is the second fragment of apocalyptic research recently announced by economists Gordon Dahl from the University of Rochester and Enrico Moretti from UCLA . They analyzed three million U.S. birth and marriage records, and found that married couples with one daughter are almost 5 percent more likely to split up, versus those with one son. And the effect grew more pronounced with more offspring. Parents of three girls are about 10 percent more likely to divorce than those with three boys. The numbers were even worse in other countries.

Mounting evidence in social science journals demonstrates that the divorce rate is eroding society as we know it and will have a devastating effect upon future generations (small as they eventually may be).

Were the Dietary Guidelines to be followed, the reduced salt diets recommended would lead to a veritable torrent of fairer sex births shadowed by an epidemic of divorce, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1857 British Matrimonial Causes Act.

The breakdown of society is another in the long list of unintended consequences resulting from the unwise and totally unwarranted recommendations resulting from the latest iteration of the Dietary Guidelines.

For years, I have gone on record highlighting the benefits of the “Mediterranean” diet . This was no second or third party pitch I was making. Having lived in Italy for almost 20 years, I have ample ‘first-hand’ experience of the diet and its many health benefits. At the same time, it was clear to me that this healthful diet was being misrepresented to fit the agendas of certain individuals and organizations in the health and consumer segments.

There is no doubt that everyone loves a winner and the hands-down favorite diet all around the world promoting good health is the Mediterranean diet, so naturally all the diet talking heads tried to pitch it in their favor. Lots of salads, vegetables and fruits, plenty of grains (bread and pasta), good cheeses, a lot of fish and a small amount of meat – that’s how all the Mediterranean diet promoters characterized it. And there is no doubt, the cardiovascular figures of Mediterranean residents are amongst the best in the world.

But all the pretenders in the medical institutions and the consumer group sector neglected to mention one very important aspect of the Mediterranean diet – it’s very high salt content. That can only mean one of two things. Either, they had no idea of what the diet actually was but pretended they did, or they knew it was a very high salt diet but purposely lied about it because it did not fit their agenda. After all, the urban myth was that high salt diets contributed to cardiovascular disease and if the Mediterranean diet was revealed to be high in salt, it would prove to be very embarrassing to their salt reduction agenda. Either way, it makes me wonder how consumers can still have any faith in the medical establishment when it comes to nutritional advice.

Aside from my personal experience of the food in Italy, there was a highly regarded publication by C. Leclercq and A. Ferro-Luzzi describing the high salt content of the Italian diet (1). This 20 year old paper was just reconfirmed by a recent study of A. Venezia et al, published in the May edition of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition . And still, the Southern Italians continue to enjoy good cardiovascular health.

And salt is not a bystander to this good health paradigm. A key determinant of good health is the consumption of a sufficient amount of salads and vegetables. These foods contain the bulk of the essential water-soluble micro-nutrients we consume. You don’t get as many water soluble nutrients from any other source in the diet. And it is salt that makes salads and vegetables so tasty. Salt is what encourages a good, well-balanced diet. That is why we evolved to like salt as much as we do – because it keeps us healthy.

The doom and gloom prophets, the food police and the nutrition con artists are all preaching that our diet is killing us. Fortunately, most of us are blissfully unaware of this so we continue to enjoy life and thrive better than at any time in the entire history of mankind – just check out the health statistics on the CDC website .

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(1) C. Leclercq and A. Ferro-Luzzi, “Total and domestic consumption of salt and their determinants in three regions of Italy,” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Mar, 45(3), 151-9, (1991).

(2) A Venezia, G Barba, O Russo, C Capasso, V De Luca, E Farinaro, F. Cappuccio, and P Strazzullo, “Dietary sodium intake in a sample of adult male population in southern Italy: results of the Olivetti Heart Study,” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 64, 518-524 (May 2010).

In a previous blog "Abolish FSA - Without Delay !" I mentioned that the new UK government was thinking of making major changes to the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Well, today, the UK government has ended speculation about the future of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), announcing that the body will retain its food safety remit but be stripped of responsibility for nutrition policy and labeling.

Under the plans, the Department of Health (DoH) will become responsible for nutrition policy while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will oversee labeling and food composition policies.

The FSA was known to advance an activist agenda totally driven by misinformation rather than concrete evidence. Their role in nutrition policy will not be missed.

On June 15, 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that public comments would be accepted on the Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 (Advisory Report). Individuals and organizations were encouraged to provide written comments and oral testimony could also be provided at a public meeting to be held in Washington, DC, on July 8, 2010 .

I submitted the Salt Institute’s comments (pdf 91.39 kB) that were accepted by the USDA for oral testimony. The oral testimony was well received and was cited in several articles as well as releases issued by other groups .

Aldosterone plays a major role in the maintenance of electrolytes and fluid balance and subsequent blood pressure control. Epidemiological studies that explore the connection between hypertension and cancer have found a higher rate of cancer-related mortality in hypertensive patients that have an elevated level of aldosterone. Recent research indicates that this may be the result of aldosterone-mediated damage to chromosomes and DNA in kidney cells.

For most people, the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system is activated when our salt consumption drops below current levels. Although cardiovascular issues were always considered to be a possible unintended consequence of salt reduction, this study is one of the preliminary indications that an increase in cancer-related mortality may be a consequence as well. The Salt Institute will maintain a watching brief on the clinical research carried out in this area.

In my recent blog, “Good Tidings ,” I mentioned that Food Standards Agency (FSA) chief executive Tim Smith claimed that the UK has “turned the tide” on salt consumption, basing his case upon the disputed FSA analysis survey showing that average adult salt intakes dropped from 9.5g/day in 2001 to 8.6g/day in 2008. However, there was a strange tone in his public address that led me to believe that something was afoot. I got the impression that, with the new government installed in the UK, the FSA’s chief executive was indicating that they would be cutting their anti-salt campaign, which is which is why I felt that the tide had turned.

Well, there was more news on this front this week. On Monday, July 12, the Guardian wrote that Andrew Lansley, the British Health Secretary indicated that the Food Standards Agency may be abolished entirely. As part of the changes, the FSA's regulatory role – including safety and hygiene –would be reassigned to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) from whence it originally came.

There were the inevitable cries of foul – that the government could not get rid of a much needed watchdog agency , but I for one couldn’t be more pleased. The FSA was the poorest possible model of a watchdog agency and it's about time it was abolished.

The function of a watchdog agency is to make sure everyone is honest – everyone – a hard task to accomplish when the agency itself was dishonest and used taxpayers' money to advance an activist agenda totally driven by misinformation rather than concrete evidence. The agency completely ignored every bit of science that did not support their agenda, as though it didn't exist. They tried to bundle together bits and pieces of poor, incomplete information or opinion and pass it off as a real evidence - talk about putting lipstick on a pig! The FSA became the chief promoters of the big lie on the benefits of salt reduction.

Yes, we may need certain watchdog agencies - not pawns of any interest group, but honest scientists who can objectively evaluate scientific evidence and who have enough backbone and honesty to forgo advancing gratuitous solutions until sufficient evidence is available, rather than giving half-baked advice that will never benefit anyone except themselves.

Speaking to an audience of academics, government officials and World Health Organisation staff at a salt reduction forum in London, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) chief executive Tim Smith acknowledged that UK salt intakes were still well above its target of 6g/day after seven years of vigorous campaigning. He claimed that the UK has “turned the tide” on salt consumption, basing his claim upon the disputed FSA analysis survey showing that average adult salt intakes dropped from 9.5g/day in 2001 to 8.6g/day in 2008. What he didn’t mention to his chosen sympathetic audience was that these figures have been openly disputed as being inaccurate and inconsistent1.

Even if those figure were correct, claiming to have turned the tide when they have only reached 25% of their stated goal in 8 years is reflective of the ‘DON’T BOTHER ME WITH THE FACTS’ ideology that has characterized the anti-salt advocates involved with the salt and health debate. His statement is doubly perplexing coming only a few days two reports by Nielson and Kantar WorldPanel on the retail sales of salt in the UK. Nielson claims an 18% jump in UK retail sales of salt in 2010 (including cooking, table and sea salt) while Kantar WorldPanel claims volumes were up 26.5%! Granted, some of this rise was due to consumers using table salt for home deicing last year, but Nielson also recorded a sharp rise in 2008/09, which could not be attributed to the weather.

So while there is no doubt that the FSA’s strategy of ‘naming and shaming’ companies has coerced many of them to lower the salt in their processed food formulations, have consumers compensated for this by topping up taste with the salt shaker? The neural mechanisms for salt appetite that we have evolved over the eons certainly indicates that this may be the case2. In fact, the Salt Institute has prepared a number of Newsletters on this very subject3, 4, 5. So despite Smith’s claims of turning the tide, the preponderance of scientific evidence appears to disagree with the notion that public policies can supersede our naturally evolved physiological mechanisms controlling our intake and liking of salt4.

Or is it possible that, with the new government installed in the UK, the FSA’s chief executive has signalled that they will be cutting back their anti-salt campaigning, but felt obliged to claim some sort of pyrrhic victory. It certainly seems that way, particularly since he stated how important salt was in preventing microbial growth, toxins and spoilage as well as its critical importance in baking.

It appears that the whole salt and health debate may indeed have seen the “tide turned.”

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1) McCarron, D.A., Geerling, J.C., Kazaks, A.G. and Stern, J.S., “Can Dietary Sodium Intake Be Modified by Public Policy?” Clin J Am Soc Nephrol, 4, 1878–1882, 2009.

2) Geerling, J.C., and Loewy, A.D., “Central regulation of sodium appetite,” Exp Physiol 93: 177–209, 2008.

3) Satin, M., “Aldosterone: unlocking our understanding of cardiovascular risk,” Salt and Health Newsletter, 3(3). Summer, 2008.

4) Satin, M., “Salt Appetite Revisited,” Salt and Health Newsletter, 3(1), Winter, 2010.

5) Satin, M., “Salt Appetite,” Salt and Health Newsletter, First Quarter, 2010.

The impact of salt on health has been reviewed on a number of occasions over the years with mixed results. The latest meta-review of the evidence was commissioned by the German Ministry of Health just last year and concluded that population-wide salt reduction was not justified from a public health point of view. The controversial nature of the evidence will have great significance for international trade if salt reduction policies are ever enacted. This month's Food Technology Magazine features an OpEd I wrote on this issue.

When the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995, an international agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) to reduce risks arising from additives, contaminants, toxins, or pathogens in foods took effect. Intimately linked to the SPS is an additional agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), signed in the same year and designed to restrict the use of unjustified measures for the purpose of trade protection.

The aim of the SPS and TBT Agreements is to ensure that regulatory actions are not misused for protectionist purposes and don't result in unnecessary barriers to international trade. The intent is to reduce arbitrary decisions by requiring all health protection measures to be based upon an objective analysis of the preponderance of scientific evidence.

Import regulations that fall under the provisions of TBT or SPS Agreements are typically complex and frequently employ standards that create a high hurdle for imports. Exporters, whose own governments do not implement similar standards, find it difficult to understand the logic or need behind the regulations, so an objective evaluation of the science supporting them goes a long way in resolving disputes.

The core strategy of the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee report on "Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States" is the FDA removal of GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status from salt and the regulation of the amount to be added to each food category. Removing the GRAS status of salt and regulating what is an essential nutrient and arguably the oldest and most ubiquitous food additive in the world will be a monumental task and will undoubtedly have enormous consequences for food and food trade around the world.

Several European countries are major exporters of traditional food products to the U.S. Breads, olives, ham, sausages and cheeses--produced through processes standardized centuries ago--are typical examples. These products and processes are so well established that many are protected with geographic origin designations. Not only are products such as Parmesan and Gorgonzola cheeses, olives, anchovies, prosciutto, and pepperoni consumed directly, but they are also key ingredients in many other products such as pizza and pasta dishes.

These traditional products were developed long before refrigeration. Many employ high salt levels for debittering (olives), curing (hard cheeses), mold culturing (blue-veined cheeses), water activity control (black forest and prosciutto hams, corned beef, salamis, etc.), and storage (anchovies, capers, fish roe, salt fish). The intent of the IOM report makes it unlikely that these traditional products will be permitted. While it is impossible to say whether low-salt variations of these products will achieve market success or whether salt replacement additives will themselves come under regulatory analysis for potential health issues, one thing can be predicted with a fair degree of certainty. Regulation of the salt content of foods will be carefully scrutinized regarding its impact as a non-tariff trade barrier.

For exporters of traditional French, Greek, and Italian foods, the health benefits of the high salt content Mediterranean Diet have been acknowledged for centuries. Despite Americans' stable consumption of salt for the past three decades, ischemic heart disease death rates in the U.S. have fallen precipitously. All of the above are rational reasons to invoke the SPS and TBT Agreements to challenge whether the regulation of salt in foods is an arbitrary measure and an unjustified barrier to trade or one supported by the preponderance of scientific evidence.

Supertasters are people who experience taste with far greater intensity over the average. It is estimated that about 25% of the population are supertasters and women are more likely to be supertasters than men as are Asians and Africans. The cause of this heightened response is thought to be due to an increased number of fungiform papillae or taste buds. Although one would think that the taste sensation would be an advantage if it is more sensitive, this is not always the case. An increased response to bitterness may severely limit the range of foods that are palatable. Vegetables have important phytochemicals that are protective of heart disease and cancer risk but their natural bitterness may turn supertasters off.

A potential unintended consequence of population-wide salt reduction has been highlighted in a paper by John Hayes and colleagues from Pennsylvania State University, published in the latest edition of Physiology and Behavior .

Hayes and colleagues examined the response of supertasters to varying amounts of salt in a wide range of foods. As indicated previously, these supertasters make up about 25% of the population and are genetically hypersensitive to bitter tastes, leading them to naturally avoid some vegetables and other foods that taste naturally bitter.

The researchers measured the liking and intake of foods with varying amount of saltiness among 87 healthy adults (45 men).

Supertasters reported greater saltiness in chips and pretzels and soup broth at levels comparable to regular-sodium products. They also found greater sensory enjoyment to growing salt concentration in cheeses (where sodium ions mask bitterness).

Despite adding less salt, supertasters consumed more sodium through food, as salt was more important to preference, both for its salty taste and masking of bitterness. This suggested to the researchers that supertasters appreciate increased salt in food formulations to mask naturally bitter foods particularly vegetables and other foods that may be deemed to be healthy.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture may increase health risks, including obesity, by ignoring sound science as they announce recommendations to reduce sodium consumption to 1,500 mg per day. It is reckless for the government to risk the health of Americans by relying on substandard levels of evidence and refusing to consider new evidence.

The rationale behind the recommendation is purportedly blood pressure reduction. While no one doubts that a small percentage of our population may experience modest blood pressure declines from salt reduction, it has not been scientifically established that a population-wide reduction will benefit overall health. Research indicates health risks for some on low salt diets, including higher risk of heart attacks. And new research shows that not a single modern society consumes such a low level of salt as that recommended (less than 4 grams of salt per day). This recommendation is essentially an unauthorized massive clinical trial using 300 million Americans as guinea pigs.

Recent research (Can Dietary Sodium Intake be Modified by Public Policy? David A. McCarron, Joel C. Geerling, Alexandra G. Kazaks, Judith S. Stern) involving data collected from more than 19,000 individuals in 33 countries has demonstrated that healthy humans, all around the world, consume sodium within a relatively narrow range (2700 mg- 4900 mg sodium) – a range controlled by a number of physiological mechanisms. The DGAC recommended level of 1500 mg is drastically lower and will result in unintended health consequences if Americans strive to reach the recommended target.

Most nutritionists agree that reduced sodium in food preparations will very likely increase the obesity crisis because individuals will consume more calories just to satisfy their innate sodium appetite and their search for eating satisfaction.

Perhaps the greatest failure of the Dietary Guidelines is their priority focus on single nutrients rather than the whole diet. Concerns over blood pressure would be better addressed if Americans would eat more salads, vegetables and fruits. Italians consume more salt than Americans yet they have better cardiovascular health because they eat a well balanced diet. They use salt to make healthy foods more delicious...without adding calories.

The public comment period on the Dietary Guidelines is June 15 to July 15.