FDA Mulls Cutting Salt in Processed Foods

THURSDAY, Nov. 29 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials opened a public debate Thursday on just how much salt is too much in the processed foods Americans eat.

The hearing was called in response to a request made in 2005 by the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), asking the agency to make changes to the regulatory status of salt, to require limits on salt levels in processed foods, and to require health messages related to salt and sodium on food labels.

"Very few people dispute that Americans get way too much salt from processed and restaurant foods, and that an excess promotes hypertension, stroke, heart attacks, kidney failure, and early death," CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson said in a statement. "While the FDA has historically declined to challenge companies to lower high sodium levels, it is increasingly hard for FDA officials to ignore the calls to action made in recent years by the medical community."

Testifying at the meeting, Dr. Stephen Havas, the American Medical Association's vice president for science, quality and public health, said that "the need for action is clear. The deaths attributed to excess salt consumption represents a huge toll - the equivalent of a jumbo jet with more than 400 passengers crashing every day of the year, year after year."

In a statement, Havas said that cutting the amount of salt in the American diet in half over the next decade could save 150,000 lives annually.

"Americans don't consume large amounts of salt because they request it," he said, "but often do so unknowingly because manufacturers and restaurants put it in food."

Not everyone agrees that regulation is the way to go, however.

"Americans consume too much salt," agreed Milton Stokes, a spokesman for the American Dietetic Association, which represents the nation's nutritionists. "But I don't think the idea of a sodium warning would be effective. People are confused enough. It makes people almost afraid to eat."

One food industry representative also opposes new regulation.

"The issue is really more about individual's dietary patterns and food choices," said Robert Earl, senior director of nutrition policy at the Food Products Association (FPA), a food industry lobbying group.

"We think an alternative to strict regulation of salt as a food additive [is] that you can achieve public health benefit by encouraging industry to continue its efforts to reduce salt in food products and at the same time encourage American consumers to eat according to [the federal government's] Dietary Guidelines for Americans," Earl said.

Currently, the FDA categorizes salt as "generally recognized as safe." So far, the agency has refused to change this categorization.