Will the new Dietary Guidelines contribute to the diabetes epidemic?
Hot on the heels of the report out of Harvard linking low-salt diets to an increase in insulin resistance for healthy people comes a major report from United Healthcare projecting an epidemic of diabetes by 2020. Widely covered in today's press , the report states that more than half of Americans will have diabetes or be pre-diabetic by 2020. This would add a cost of $3.35 trillion to the U.S. health care system if current trends go on unabated, according to analysis carried out by health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc .
The question is whether the authors of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines will have the gumption to admit their failure in accounting for all the scientific evidence available related to sodium and discard their planned recommendations for further population-wide salt reductions. Unfortunately, key members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Group , the Institute of Medicine , the CDC , the FDA and many municipal, state, and national government institutions are so committed to salt reduction programs, it will be interesting to see which of them, if any, will find the courage to reconsider their recommendations. Most notable among these is the self-proclaimed National Salt Reduction Initiative or NSRI, promoted by salt glutton Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Health Department . Perhaps if NSRI would be renamed "Initiative for Diabetes, Insulin Resistance, Obesity and other Troubles" or IDIOT, it would more closely represent its potential impact.
One thing the prevailing science tells us for certain - if policies to execute population-wide reductions in salt consumption are successful, we can fully expect a cascade of negative health epidemics, diabetes, obesity and heart failure representing only a few of them.
