Home

About Diabetes

Complications

Warning Signs

Screening Test

Donate Now

E-Lerts™ Index

Latest News

Diabetes Terms

Health & Fitness

Online Press Center

Meet Mr. Diabetes^®

Wake Up And Walk^® Tour

Headlines & Stories

About Us - Contact Info

Message Board

Links

Too Much Sodium and Too Little Potassium
posted 03/04/04

Another important report this month finds that most of us get far too much sodium (table salt) and too little potassium in our diet. The report comes from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, the group that sets desirable levels of nutrient intake for Americans. They call the report Dietary Reference Intakes for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride, and Sulfate (2004), and you can read it free online at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309091691/html/.

This 532-page report covers a lot of ground, but our imbalance between too much sodium and too little potassium is most striking. The typical Western diet is high in salt and low in potassium — just the opposite of what evidence shows is best for good health and reducing the risks of chronic disease, the report says.

More than 95 percent of American men and 75 percent of American women ages 31 to 50 consume more than the established upper limit of 5.8 grams of salt (2.3 grams of sodium) per day. This increases the risk of developing high blood pressure (hypertension), which can in turn lead to strokes, heart attacks, and kidney disease. Blood pressure tends to rise in direct relationship to the amount of sodium a person consumes. About 25 percent of American adults and more than half of those age 60 and older have high blood pressure.

Some people are especially sensitive to the harmful effects of salt. This includes people with diabetes and kidney disease, the elderly, and African-Americans.

We need some salt to replace what we lose through sweat and to get a diet that gives us enough of the other essential nutrients. How much? The report says that healthy 19- to 50-year-old adults should consume 1.5 grams of sodium and 2.3 grams of chloride each day — or 3.8 grams of salt.

The best strategy to reduce the amount of salt we consume is probably to eat less prepared and processed foods. Americans and Canadians get 77 percent of their salt from these sources, the institute says.

To lower blood pressure, blunt the effects of salt, and reduce the risk of kidney stones and bone loss, adults should consume 4.7 grams of potassium per day, the report says. However, most American women 31 to 50 years old consume no more than half of the recommended amount of potassium, and men’s intake is only moderately higher. Some people who are following low-carb diets may get even less when they reduce the amount of fruits and vegetables that they eat.

This imbalance seems to have an obvious solution. What if we simply substituted one of the salt substitutes for sale in our supermarkets for the sodium we normally cook with and put on the table? After all, potassium chloride is a common ingredient in salt substitutes.

Brands available in your supermarket may include Morton Salt Substitute, Nu-Salt, NoSalt, and Diamond Crystal Brand Salt Substitute. Each of these brands substitutes potassium for salt. That might be good for some people, but dangerous for others, especially those with heart problems and anyone who uses a lot of it. That’s why web sites for these brands typically say something like “Remember to consult a physician before using any salt substitute.”

The safer way, of course, is to eat those foods that are higher in potassium. You can easily find out how much potassium just about any food has. You can search the wonderful website of the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory in many ways. In this case you want one of the “Reports by Single Nutrient”, specifically Potassium Sorted by Nutrient Content.

Even better is a table in the report that compares how much potassium each of the food groups has on a per calorie basis. I reproduce that table here.