. "2 Sodium Intake Reduction: An Important But Elusive Public Health Goal." Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2010.
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Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States
FIGURE 2-11 Number of new food products bearing nutrient content claims, 1988–1997.
NOTE: The ↓ indicates “reduced” or “low” for fat, calories, salt, and sugar, and “low” or “no” for cholesterol.
SOURCE: Weimer, 1999.
cussed previously in this chapter, and the low and declining introduction of new products labeled by manufacturers as reduced or low in sodium.
Sodium Intake
There are three approaches for assessing intake of a nutrient such as sodium: (1) population means based on the disappearance of the nutrient of interest into the U.S. food supply, (2) intake by individuals calculated from intake records or interviews, and (3) the measurement of a biomarker of exposure. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses. While any single approach alone is associated with considerable uncertainty, consistencies across methodologies in time trend patterns and assessments relative to public health goals provide greater confidence in the conclusions reached. This section provides an overview of sodium intake in a time trend context for the purpose of describing the outcomes of the public health initiatives. Current estimates of sodium intake developed for this study are described in more detail in Chapter 5.
Salt Disappearance Data
The advantage of monitoring intake from disappearance data is that it allows for a reasonably accurate estimate of time trend patterns because
