Word: salt
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Japan and the U.S., however, are both complex societies where citizens are subject to all sorts of variables, including stress, that could contribute to hypertension. More convincing evidence against sodium conies from simpler cultures, where it is still possible to find people living relatively simple lives on low-salt diets. The tribesmen in New Guinea, the Amazon Basin, the highlands of Malaysia and rural Uganda all eat very little salt. Hypertension is virtually unheard of in those regions, and the blood pressure of individuals does not rise steadily with age, as it does in the U.S. and other salt-loving...
...classic study, Dr. Lot Page headed up a Harvard team that from 1966 to 1972 studied six tribes in the Solomon Islands. Three were totally unaffected by Western culture and three, otherwise very "primitive" (no roads, no telephones, no pollution), got to eat salt-heavy canned ham and beef jerky supplied to them by Chinese traders. Only in the second group did blood pressure increase with age. It was highest in the tribe that traditionally cooked its fish and vegetables in sea water. The tribes did not differ in weight or any other medically significant way. Says Page: "When...
...Lowering salt intake seems to reduce hypertension too. Beginning in 1972, Dr. John Farquhar of Stanford University conducted a three-year study of 1,500 men and women selected at random in three California towns. In two of the towns, subjects cut salt intake 30%. In the third, no dietary change was made. The result: blood pressure was 6.4% lower among the low-salt people than in the control town...
Implicit in the antilabeling position is the presumption that anyone who really needs to cut down on salt can easily do so now. As to the general public, the thought is that it can cut down simply by exercising a little common sense at the salt shaker. In fact it is very difficult to find one's way in the present patchwork of labeled and unlabeled products...
...Jacobson has some hopes too: "Just like it's a plus to say there are 'no preservatives,' soon it will be a plus to say 'no salt added.' " All present signs suggest that American food tastes and label-reading skills are dramatically changing. And business, with a potential market of more than 40 million consumers watching their blood pressure or simply worried about salt, is already responding to the change. "Low-sodium sales are growing. Our own no-salt-added products are selling at 50% to 90% of the levels of regular brands," says Jane...