Salt & Human Health: Iodine Deficiency

Articles in the Chicago Tribune and Washington Post suggest that the World Health Organization's efforts to remain "politically correct" will be an uphill slog.

In the Sept 23 Tribune story, Julie Deardorff equates drinking increasingly-popular "nutritionally enhanced" waters which promise to deliver not only hydration but other health benefits to taking extra vitamins that "doesn't necessarily make you healthier." In fact, she says the only proven health benefit is to the profits of the beverage industry.

Whether fortified water can deliver on all those promises is still up for debate. Critics say there's no science to show enhanced water has more health benefits than less expensive tap water, while environmental organizations, religious groups and even restaurateurs argue that all bottled water -- enhanced or not -- is a wasteful and insupportable use of fossil fuels because of the costs associated with its manufacture and transportation. From a nutritional standpoint, experts maintain that it's better to get nutrients through whole foods.

She notes that

The premise behind functional water is that the public is chronically dehydrated and short on nutrients. And because it's often hard to change a person's behavior, food companies are changing the food they're eating or drinking.

And she includes fascinating quotes:

"As a nutritionist, I may not support [functional water], but as a public-health servant, I do," said Roger Clemens, the public-health specialist for the Institute of Food Technologists. "Our goal is to provide the best possible nutrition for 300 million people in the country. In this case, it may be it takes us looking at fortified water to do that."

and

"There's not a single drink out there -- from Enviga to SmartWater -- that has any proof of impact," said nutrition professor Barry Popkin, who directs the Interdisciplinary Center for Obesity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Just because [a nutrient] is in the product doesn't necessarily mean it will impact you or get in your body. There are all sorts of false labels promising health benefits.

The Post story, predictably, casts the issue in Inside-the-Beltway effects. Says Jane Black:

A billion-dollar battle over selling sports drinks and "enhanced" water in public schools has spilled into Congress and threatens to derail a major attempt to cut back the sale of junk food from school vending machines and snack bars.

In an attempt to limit the sale of high-calorie sodas, candy bars and other snacks in schools, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has introduced a bill that would have the government set new nutritional standards for the foods and drinks that schools sell to students outside cafeterias. But just what those standards should be is the issue.

Public health advocates want the standards to ban the sale of Gatorade and Powerade, which typically contain as much as two-thirds the sugar of sodas and more sodium, as well as sweetened waters such as VitaminWater and SoBe Life Water.

Sen. Harkin hopes to add his concerns into this year's Farm Bill in the form of federal standards and claims the Grocery Manufacturers (which has "historically resisted any regulation" is open to the idea. We suspect that GMA would insist on federal pre-emption; a likely deal-breaker for Harkin.

Back in Geneva, WHO may be scratching their collective heads wondering how they ever got crosswise to their normal bedfellows who are taking stronger and stronger exception to the notion that beverages be considered a significant nutrient source. So, whether the drinking water is "artesian water," "mineral water," " purified water," "sparkling bottled water," "spring water," or just plain tapwater, the view seems to be: use it for hydration, not nutrient fortification.

Which, of course, raises a whole new set of questions never addressed by the journalists: what about fluorodated water or iodized water? Both have been used instead of using salt as the carrier.