Healthy Living - Is your diet up-to-date?

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Is your diet up-to-date?

Should I cut back on salt?

Possibly--but not necessarily as much as the government wants you to. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recently urged all Americans to consume no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day. That's less than half the 3,500 mg that Americans typically consume, and well above the 2,400-mg limit listed on nutrition labels.

The evidence for the revised recommendation comes form a government-funded study known as Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), which found that cutting sodium to 1,500 mg lowered systolic blood pressure (the upper number) on average by 1 to 2 millimiters of mercury (mm Hg), compared with a 2,400-mg intake. That's not much, given the effort required: You'd have to prepare all your food at home, from scratch.

However, that effort yielded a somewhat larger response, 3 to 7 mg Hg systolic, in people with hypertension or risk factors for it. Those factors include being black or having high-normal blood pressure--systolic of 130 to 139 mm Hg or diastolic (the lower number) of 85 to 90 mm Hg--or a family history of hypertension. Moreover, some people are "salt sensitive," maning that their blood pressure responds strongly to salt restriction. But the only way to tell whether you're a responder is to cut bacvk and monitor your response.

Our medical consultants say that giving the lower sodium limit a try for at least a few months is worthwhile for people who have hypertension, risk factors, or possibly even blood pressure slightly above 120/80 mm Hg, the upper limit for optimal pressure. If getting down to 1,500 mg of sodium is too hard, smaller cutbacks may still yield benefits, particularly if you're salt sensitive.

What should I do about that cancer-causing chemical in fried foods?

Acrylamide, found in many plastics, is a proven neurotoxin, or nerve-damaging substance, and a likely carcinogen. Last April Swedish researchers announced they had found the chemical in various fried, high-carb foods, such as french fries and potato chips, at levels far above wht the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows in drinking water. Subsequent reports confirmed that finding--and indicated that many other high-carb foods, including breads, cereals, and crackers, also have relatively high levels. Acrylamide is created when such foods are cooked at high tempuratures.

Experts admit they still aren't sure the chemical poses a cancer risk in humans, or that the amounts in foods are dangerous. Nor do they understand why the acrylamide content varies widely among different versions of the same product; for example, the levels varied nearly 100-fold among different potato-chip samples. But they hope it means there's some way of growing or cooking food that minimizes its acrylamide content.

Meanwhile, the findings provide one more reason to reduce your intake of deep-fried, high-carb foods like potato chips and french fries, which tend to have the most acrylamide. But at this point the evidence probably isn't strong enough to justify cutting back on breads, cereals, or similar foods, many of which are rich in health-protective substances.

>> How can I enjoy what I eat with all these restrictions? >>

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A new dietary pyramid