Word: sodium
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Check food labels. Pasta sauces, sandwich breads and frozen dinners often contain lots of sodium...
Doctors have long known that cutting back on salt or sodium can help lower blood pressure in folks with hypertension, a silent condition that increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. What hasn't been so clear is whether reducing the amount of sodium in the diet will benefit those whose blood pressure is normal. Now comes word that restricting salt can indeed lower normal blood-pressure levels. Though the effect isn't as great, it's still important, according to a study published in last week's New England Journal of Medicine...
...Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, which emphasizes lots of fresh produce, low-fat dairy, fish and fewer sweets and which was proved in 1997 to reduce hypertension. The biggest decreases in blood pressure in this study were recorded in subjects who ate the DASH diet and reduced their sodium intake...
...this significant? Public-health experts estimate that Americans consume, on average, about 3,500 mg of sodium--equal to about 9 grams of salt--each day. Current guidelines recommend consuming no more than 2,300 mg of sodium--about 6 grams of salt--daily. It's not that we're that heavy-handed with the saltshaker. Most of our dietary sodium is added during food processing. To get down to 1,200 mg, you'd have to forgo most prepared foods, take-out deliveries and restaurant meals...
...someone who periodically comes home late from work too pooped to do anything but dial up some sodium-packed Thai food, I know that eating home-cooked meals all the time is not terribly practical. But with a little planning and some self-awareness, you can work around those occasional slips. Salt is, after all, essential to life. The trick is to adopt an overall pattern of healthy living and not depend on any one thing to make up for bad habits...