CSPI: Restaurants serve meals high in salt

Tuesday May 13, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) --  A nonprofit food safety group warns that some restaurants are over-loading entrees with so much salt that there is an “immediate risk of heart failure” for the elderly, and are asking for government action.

A news release entitled “Heart Attack Entrees with Side Orders of Stroke,” was presented to the Senate Finance Committee on Monday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).

The report states that levels of salt in some chain restaurant meals are so outrageous that they are “sabotaging the food supply,” according to Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson. The excessive salt is so high, he said, that it will lead to increased risks for hypertension, heart attacks, strokes and kidney disease. CSPI researchers examined 17 chain restaurants and found that 85 out of 102 meals had more than a day’s worth of salt, while some had almost four day’s worth.

The worst offender, according to the CSPI, was Red Lobster’s Admirals feast dinner. The meal includes a ceasar salad, lobster, mashed potato, biscuit and lemonade, and clocked in with 7,106 milligrams of salt. Second on the list was Chili’s Buffalo Chicken Fajitas, which includes tortillas, condiments and a Dr. Pepper, and had 6,916 mg of salt. The Olive Garden’s Chicken Parmigiana, with a breadstick, salad with house dressing and lemonade had a whopping 6,176 mg of salt, states the report.

In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration recommended in its dietary guidelines that the general public should have no more than 2,300 mg of salt; those at risk (people who already have hypertension, the elderly, and African Americans) should have a daily salt intake of no more than 1,500 mg per day.

“Who knows how many Americans have been pushed prematurely into their graves thanks to sodium levels like those found in Olive Garden, Chili’s and Red Lobster,” said Jacobson. “They should cut back and give consumers the freedom to decide for themselves how much salt they want.”

Those in particular danger from this amount of salt overload are the elderly, said Dr. Mel Daly, Medical Director with the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

“More than 70 percent of older Americans have hypertension and are especially vulnerable,” he said. “Many elderly eat frequently at these restaurants because of convenience and cost. But the high sodium levels in many of these meals can lead to a spike in blood pressure and even precipitate heart failure in some individuals.”

In September, 2008, foodconsumer.org reported that the American Heart Association found that too much dietary salt can cause resistant high blood pressure. The AHA stated that resistant hypertension is a condition where blood pressure remains above the target level even when three medications are used to lower it. Researchers in that study, conducted at the University of Alabama, found that patients were able to lower their systolic blood pressure by 22.6 percent while on a low-salt diet.

The CSPI is asking the Obama administration to look to sodium reduction and other prevention measures as a means of making health care more affordable. Hypertension experts, they state, estimate that reducing sodium levels in restaurant and packaged foods by half could prevent at least 150,000 premature deaths in the U.S. each year.

The Salt Institute side

The Salt Institute (SI) challenged the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines on salt reduction in a February foodconsumer.org press release. They stated that population-wide salt reduction guidelines were based on “substandard evidence and science.”

They complained that a meeting of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to set dietary guidelines excluded public engagement and was “filled with expert opinion as opposed to evidence-based findings,” according to SI President Dick Hanneman. Morton Satin, technical director of the SI, said new evidence should be considered for the agency’s guidelines on salt intake.

“While no one doubts that a certain proportion of our population may experience modest blood pressure declines from salt reduction,” he said, “it has by no means been scientifically established that a population-wide reduction will benefit health outcomes.”

(By Sheilah Downey, and edited by Heather Kelley)