With Americans consuming 50 percent more salt than recommended, the FDA issued voluntary guidelines on Wednesday that would reduce sodium content in packaged and restaurant food, the major source of salt in the diet. The FDA said guidelines might “become one of the most significant public health nutrition interventions in a generation.”
The guidelines would reduce salt intake to 3,000 milligrams a day, a 12 percent cut from the current 3,400 milligrams. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends a limit of 2,300 milligrams a day for Americans ages 14 and older. “We know that even these modest reductions made slowly over the next few years will substantially decrease diet-related diseases,” said acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock.
Health and consumer groups welcomed the FDA guidance while calling for further action to reduce salt consumption, linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and heart attack. A teaspoon of table salt holds a bit more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium.
The FDA guidance allows two-and-a-half years for food manufacturers, chain restaurants and food service operators to reduce the sodium content of 163 categories of processed, prepared and packaged foods. The agency proposed short- and long-term targets in sodium content of food in 2016. It did not include long-term goals in Wednesday’s guidelines.
“In the future, we plan to issue revised, subsequent targets to further lower the sodium content,” said Woodcock, so that consumers’ taste adjust over time. “Voluntary and gradual approaches such as this have also been successful in other countries, such as Canada and the UK.”
The American Heart Association said adoption of the guidelines was crucial in reducing salt in the diet. “Lowering sodium further to 2,300 milligrams could prevent an estimated 450,000 cases of cardiovascular disease, gain 2 million quality-adjusted life years and save approximately $40 billion in health-care costs over a 20-year period,” it said.
The FDA ought to proceed with putting six-year and 10-year targets into print, said the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest. “These targets remain voluntary and, if compliance is poor, mandatory standards should be considered.”
Nearly half of adults in the United States have high blood pressure, says the CDC. The condition is more common among Blacks than in whites or Hispanics and is found more frequently in the South, Midwest and mid-Atlantic states.
The FDA constituent update on sodium is available here.
An FDA web page, “Sodium Reduction,” is available here.
The FDA guidance for industry is available here.