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Let's Ask Marion: Kidney Stones In Kids: Time To Shake Off The Salt?
Submitted by KAT on Sat, 11/01/2008 - 5:23pm.
(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally’s kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)
Kat: Last Tuesday's New York Times reported that kidney stones, "once considered a disorder of middle age, are now showing up in children as young as 5 or 6." One of the primary culprits appears to be excess consumption of salty processed foods. The problem is especially bad in the "so-called stone belt, a swath of Southern states with a higher incidence of kidney stones."
You noted in What To Eat that because the food industry--especially the snack food sector--relies so heavily on salt to make its products taste better, it's pretty easy to exceed one's recommended daily allowance for salt. The Center For Science in the Public Interest calls salt "perhaps the deadliest ingredient" in our food supply, because excess salt consumption is a major cause of heart disease and strokes.
That's why the CSPI has been petitioning the FDA for years to revoke salt's "GRAS" status--i.e., "generally recognized as safe," and reclassify it as a food additive, as well as establishing limits for its use.
But the government is notoriously reluctant to advise Americans to consume less of anything, as you noted earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Meanwhile, the big food corporations are trying to score reduced-fat, low-sodium brownie points by adopting new, improved nutrition standards for their products under the "Smart Choices Program," which will supposedly make it easier for consumers to make healthy selections at the supermarket.
With our kids up to their hineys in brine, do these kinds of voluntary measures do enough to address the problem, or is the CSPI justified in calling for greater regulation of salt?
Dr. Nestle: Pity the poor food industry. First the makers of junk foods are under siege over sugars and childhood obesity and now they have to deal with salt-induced kidney stones.
We are talking junk foods here. Without sugars and salt, nobody would buy this stuff. That, at least, is what food company executives tell me. When they reduce the sugar or salt level below the “bliss” point, sales drop. This, of course, is because we are so accustomed to a junk food diet that it takes more and more sugars and salt to stimulate our taste receptors. Try two or three weeks on a low sugar, low salt diet. Do that and you will soon see that processed foods now taste unbearably sweet or salty.
Food companies are responding to pressures to reduce calories, saturated fat, sugars, and salt with their Smart Choices Program. This is designed to replace the PepsiCo Smart Spot, the Kraft Sensible Solutions, and other such company self-endorsements of “better-for-you” junk foods—an oxymoron if I have ever heard one. The way these programs work is that each company sets up its own nutritional criteria for qualifying for the logo.
The Smart Choices program works the same way except that participating companies have agreed on a unified set of nutritional criteria. These, as you can see on their website, are not especially stringent.
The salt standard is a good example. It is the same as that of the American Heart Association—a remarkably generous 480 mg of sodium per serving, or 20% of the Daily Value maximum. Salt is 40% sodium and 60% chloride, which means that 480 mg sodium corresponds to 1.2 grams of salt per serving. This, for example, allows salty soups to qualify.
But if you want to try to eat less salt, just try and get food companies to cooperate. Processed foods are by far the largest source of salt—90%--in American diets. What you add at the table hardly counts. This is because food companies are addicted to salt. Adding salt is a great “eat more” strategy. Salt heightens flavors and extends shelf life. It is cheap. Even better, it binds water and makes foods weigh more, and companies can charge more for heavier packages. Unfortunately for them, just about every scientific group that has examined the evidence says salt raises the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease—and now premature kidney stones--at least in a significant fraction of people. And now even kids are getting salt-induced kidney stones.
To me, the salt issue looks like one in which I have no options except not to eat processed or restaurant food at all. This is completely backward. If people want their food to taste saltier, nothing stops them; all they have to do is pick up a salt shaker. But the rest of us have no choice. Someone else has already made the decision for us. Salt, and usually lots of it, has already been added to the foods we are served or sold. As I see it, the responsibility lies squarely with food companies. I wish they would lower the salt in their products, starting right now. The generous salt allowances in the Smart Choices program won’t help much.
What that program really is about is preemption of the traffic signal approach for labeling food products, under serious consideration in Australia. Food companies hate the idea. Too many of their products will qualify for red (don’t eat) and yellow (once in a while) labels.
One final thought: Why am I thinking that lawyers will be most interested in the relationship between salty products marketed to children and kidney stones?
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Health problems are seen all across our country, as well as other countries. It seems like everywhere you turn, there’s a story about how unhealthy Americans are today. Obesity and diabetes are a worldwide health issue that is on the rise among adults and children alike. The New York Times published a news story reporting that children, as young as 5 or 6, are seen more and more with a case of kidney stones. Kidney stones used to be a rare issue among children, but now, some hospitals have opened pediatric kidney stone clinics in order to accommodate all of the kids that come in with kidney stones. Many children drink less water and eat more food that contains high amounts of sodium. These are the two biggest risk factors in this the risk of kidney stones. Parents need to educate their children on the matter and practice healthy eating habits to avoid this critical issue. Kidney stones are harmful to a child. Not only that, but it can be a major blow to your budget. Payday installment loans are available to provide fast cash to help cover those medical costs. Don’t worry more than you need to.
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I'm going to guess that if a kid eats poorly outside of the home, that's bad. But it's worse if they see their parents eating chips and there's always a stash of cookies and candy in the house. I think in the short term kids may eat what tastes good, but when they get older they'll remember what their parents taught them and exemplified.
Given the current events with melamine in milk, eggs, candy and other food causing kidney stones in children in China, shouldn't we be testing our food more diligently and consider the same is happening here?
Even at "acceptable" levels couldn't melamine accumulate if it is present in many foods and cause a this spike in kidney stones?
It's not just salt but too much animal protein too causing calcium to be leached from the bones to deal with all the acidity. We are messed up and it's nearly impossible with the societal pressures to parent well when kids are given mandatory breakfast at school and stupid parties for every possible reason where the moms with the big hair bring the store bought cupcakes with the impossibly colored crisco frosting two inches high.
Why are people so afraid of fruits and vegetables?
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