Kids' salt craving is hard-wired

USA Today published a story today repeating activists' claims that children eat too much salt. Our reply:

Kim Painter's article ignores two important points of science. First, salt reduction in children and adults may be related to blood pressure, but because salt reduction triggers other reactions, it has not been shown to lower the rate of heart attacks or cardiovascular mortality. That cherished assumption has been demolished by evidence over the past 13 years. Second, humans and other animal species eat salt in predictable amounts when they can get it; our salt intake is unchanged over the past century. Research published in the February issue of Experimental Physiology explains that the brain's neural system system provides multiple, redundant systems to make sure our salt appetite ensures we get enough salt. Salt is an essential nutrient. We die unless we eat salt.

Let's let the science guide this policy. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the government's in-house advocate for evidence-based policy, has found evidence insufficient to advise the general population to reduce dietary salt. Ditto the Cochrane Collaboration, the global inventor of "evidence-based" decision-making in medical science.

For more information, check the Salt Institute website, http://www.saltinstitute.org/28.html.

Dick Hanneman

President, Salt Institute