6-2011, 04:10 PM | |||
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| SUN's editorial (2/6) is confused on the terms "sodium" and "salt". It reports the FDA's advice to reduce daily SODIUM intake to less than 2,300 mg and further reduce intake to 1,500 among persons who are 51 and older and those of any age who are African-American or have hypertension. RE SODIUM, it also says "by which the government means SALT." This is VERY misleading! When the FDA says 2,300 mg SODIUM, it is actually referring to the SODIUM component of SALT (NaCl) and NOT salt per se! 2,300 mg of SODIUM is A LOT less in weight than the SALT (NaCl) in which it is contained!!!! (There's a factor for extrapolating the NA content in a given quantity of salt. Thanks to my City College chem class with "Oxhie" McDonald, I know how to derive it. Anybody else out there? Hint: start with atomic wts.) FINALLY, maybe the public would take more seriously SODIUM RDA's if it were expressed in quantiies of salt rather than mg's! |
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Default FDA' New sodium RDA
