August 26, 2019 – Salt Sensitivity

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Anchor lead: Dietary salt is more of an issue in obese people, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Salt re-emerged a few years ago as one of our latest dietary scourges, but studies seemed to suggest that only certain groups of people were sensitive to salt when it comes to blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Now new evidence points to obesity as a factor. Shel Gottlieb, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, explains.

Gottlieb: About the last state that hasn’t become grossly obese I think is Colorado. I think what you have is a public health disaster of obesity, basically a nutritional disaster. The sodium sensitivity is going to play into that. And the other problem is that people have very little control over the amount of sodium in their diet because its mostly in prepared food.  :21

Gottlieb identifies policies to reduce salt in prepared foods as a place to begin.

Gottlieb: Why don’t we start by cutting out let’s say 25% of the sodium? No one will notice. And take it from there because the taste buds themselves will readjust themselves according to the sodium load.  :11

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.